“They asked me for bread with sausages”: the new details about the rescue of children in the jungle of Colombia

The case of the four indigenous children who were found in Colombia After 40 days of searching in the jungle, it has gone around the world and little by little more details have been learned about how the rescue was.

The search for the minors, who were traveling in a small plane that crashed in the area, was undertaken jointly -and in an unprecedented event in recent history for the country- between the indigenous guard and the Colombian Army, which managed to have more than 120 people on the ground.

LOOK: Wilson, the rescue dog who apparently found and accompanied the children in the jungle of Colombia but is now lost

One of the rescuers, Nicolás Ordóñez Gómez, recalled the exact moment the children were discovered.

“The eldest daughter, Lesly, with the baby in her arms, ran up to me and said, ‘I’m hungry.’”Gómez told the RTVC channel.

Image of the transfer of children to Bogotá. (Reuters).

“Another of the two children was lying down, he got up and told me: ‘My mother is dead.’ And then he asked me for bread with sausages, ”he added.

Rescuers said they approached the children with positive words “saying that we were friends and that family had sent us.”

The images released by the Colombian Army showed that the four brothers had suffered the rigors of the jungle, with their gaunt faces and their bodies bitten by mosquitoes.

The four children, Soleiny, Tien, Lesly and Cristin, were the children of Magdalena Mucutuy, who traveled between the town of Araracuara in the Amazon to the city of San José del Guaviare.

Magdalena’s body was found on May 15, when the wreckage of the crashed aircraft was found in the jungle in southern Colombia.

BBC.

jungle knowledge

The children are members of the Huitoto indigenous group and their grandfather told Colombian media that his knowledge of edible fruits and seeds it had been key to his survival.

Astrid Cáceres, director of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF), said that fortunately “the jungle was in harvest” and they could eat fruits that were in bloom.

They would also have found a bag of cassava flour among the remains of the plane, with which they fed the first days after the accident.

Henry Guerrero, an indigenous man who was part of the team that finally located the children, said they were able to build a small shelter.

“They had made a small tent out of a tarpaulin and put a towel on the ground. They always stayed near the river and she [Lesly] he carried a small bottle that he used to [llenar y] bring water,” explained Guerrero.

The missing children became the focus of a massive rescue operation involving more than 150 soldiers, local indigenous people and sniffer dogs.

Search teams repeatedly detected signs in the jungleincluding footprints and fruit that had been bitten, leading them to believe that the children had survived the accident.

Helicopters flew over the area transmitting a recorded message from his grandmother in the Huitoto language urging them to stay still to make it easier to locate them.

The children told their rescuers that they had heard the helicopters and the message.

They were finally located Friday in a small clearing by a rescue team who had heard one of the brothers crying. “When we found them, it was really a great happiness,” Guerrero explained, describing the moment.

Manuel Ranoque, father of the children rescued after 40 days in the Amazon jungle. (Reuters).

found versions

However, as details become known about what the minors experienced, conflicting versions have also emerged.

This Monday BBC Mundo reported the statements made by the biological father of the minor children and stepfather of the two older sisters, Manuel Ranoque, to local media, in which he assured that the mother had survived four days after the accident.

“They themselves will give their statements. Lesly, the only thing that clarifies for me is that the mother she was alive for four days so before he dies he tells them, maybe, go away”, declared Ranoque.

However, the children’s grandfather and mother’s parent, Magdalena Mucutuy, refuted what Ranoque said and told the media that the little girl had told him that the three adults who were traveling in the plane had died on impact.

BBC Mundo tried to confirm the information with the authorities close to the rescue operations, but they have indicated that the children are still very weak and “have spoken very little.”

Nor has an official version of the story of the minors been delivered, although drawings that some of them made have been disseminated.

In one of them, they drew the puppy that accompanied them in the jungle and that the authorities believe was one of the rescue dogs, named Wilson, who was lost on the mission and who they are still looking for.

One of the children’s drawings shows a dog. (Army of colombia).

Source: Elcomercio