BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The joint commander of Special Operations of the Colombian Military Forces said Tuesday that it is still not clear what happened to the four children found in the jungle 40 days after the plane crash in which their mother died and considered that the Minors might clarify it better over time.
“We have had several versions,” said General Pedro Sánchez in dialogue with the Blu Radio station.
He explained that there is a version according to which the day after the incident the children “left that place and returned three days later, but there were already many bees and flies and that forced them to leave there.”
But on Sunday the father of the two youngest, Manuel Miller Ranoque, affirmed that the woman remained alive for four days after the accident that occurred between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, in southeastern Colombia. According to Ranoque, her eldest daughter told her that “her mother was alive for four days. Before she dies, her mother tells them, perhaps, ‘go away’”.
“They have also told us that the mother died immediately, on impact, and that the baby… was immediately taken out by the older sister,” Sánchez said. For this reason, the general insisted that we must wait for the minors to recover so that they can give their version of the facts and that, for the moment, everything that is said is “speculation.”
The accident of the plane in which the family was traveling occurred on May 1. The pilot, another passenger and the mother of the four children, Magdalena Mucutuy, died in the event. The minors – Lesly Mucutuy, 13 years old; Soleiny Mucutuy, 9; Tien Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy, who was in the jungle for one year, survived and remained lost for 40 days until they were found on Friday by an Army group supported by members of indigenous communities.
Since then the minors, members of the Huitoto indigenous ethnic group, have been recovering at the Military Hospital in Bogotá.
Regarding the baby, the uniformed man stated that, according to what the grandparents told him, she only received water while she was in the jungle. “Something that helped her was the build she had at the start of the accident. She was robust, very healthy and that allowed her to stay alive, ”explained the general.
He added that, apparently, the mother was carrying her in her arms at the time of the accident and that would have allowed her to be saved.
Sánchez explained that the place where the minors were found is just over three miles west of the accident site and added that “we were close to them” and, on some occasions, it is possible that “40 or 50 meters ”.
The children were traveling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to the town of San José del Guaviare when the pilot of the single-prop Cessna declared an emergency due to engine failure. Shortly after the aircraft disappeared from radar.
The plane was found two weeks later in a thick area of the jungle. The bodies of the three adults were recovered at the scene.
