'It's a Real Miracle': 4 Children Survived in the Amazon for 40 Days After Plane Crash The children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 11 months, survived by eating cassava flour and fruit.
By Madeline Garfinkle •
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Four children who had been missing since a plane crash on May 1 were found on Friday after surviving more than a month in the Colombian rainforest — an environment prone to heavy rain and inhabited by jaguars and poisonous snakes, the New York Times reported.
The Indigenous children are members of the Huitoto people and had been traveling from Araracuara, Colombia to San José del Guaviare with their mother, along with an Indigenous leader.
Rescue officials found the bodies of three adults at the wreckage site of the plane crash on May 16, but the children (aged 13, 9, 4 and 11 months) were nowhere in sight. However, authorities had strong reason to believe the children were still alive, pointing to footprints, shoes and diapers found in their search.
"It's a real miracle. It's going to be news for years to come," Pedro Arenas, a human rights activist in San José del Guaviare, told the Times. "After 40 days, it is quite incredible news. So there is a lot of joy, there is really happiness."
The children survived by eating fariña (a kind of cassava flour) taken from the wreckage site and fruit that was in harvest, the AP noted.
"The minors were already very weak," Colombian general Pedro Sanchez, who was in charge of the rescue mission, told the outlet. "And surely their strength was only enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle."
Sanchez added that the children were found three miles from the wreckage site and that the rescue team had passed their location on a "couple of occasions" but missed them.
The children are being treated at a hospital in Bogota following their rescue and are expected to stay a minimum of two weeks, the AP reported.
"They achieved an example of total survival that will go down in history," Colombian president Gustavo Petro said at a news conference on Friday night.
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