Children lost for 40 days found alive in Colombian Amazon weeks after plane crash

President Gustavo Petro says their survival is 'a joy for the whole country'

Soldiers from the Colombian Army were led to four young Indigenous children who spent more than a month in the Amazon rainforest after a plane crash in the Guaviare jungle killed the adults on board. All photos: AFP

Relatives of the four Indigenous children who were found alive after being lost for 40 days in the Colombian Amazon forest wait at a plane at military base in Bogota

Manuel Ranoque, left, father of the four Indigenous children, follows them off a plane at a military base in Bogota

Members of the Columbian Army give First Aid to four Indigenous children who were found alive after spending more than a month lost in the Amazon jungle after their plane crashed

The search for the four missing children led to a rescue operation involving hundreds of people on foot, President Gustavo Petro said

Troops were led to the four children after searchers picked up a trail that included scraps of the fruit they ate to survive and the rough shelters they built

Four children from an Indigenous community in Colombia were found alive in the south of the country more than five weeks after the plane they were travelling in crashed in jungle, President Gustavo Petro said on Friday.

The children were found by the military near the border between Colombia's Caqueta and Guaviare provinces, close to where the small plane went down.

“A joy for the whole country. The four children who were lost … in the Colombian jungle appeared alive,” Mr Petro said in a Twitter message.

The plane – a Cessna 206 – was carrying seven people between Araracuara, in Amazonas province, and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, in the early hours of May 1 when engine failure was reported.

Three adults, including the pilot, were killed in the crash. The four children, aged 13, 9 and 4, as well as an 11-month-old baby, survived.

The bodies of the pilot, the children's mother and a local Indigenous leader were all found at the crash site, where the plane sat almost vertical in the trees.

Preliminary information from the civil aviation authority, which co-ordinated the rescue efforts, suggested the children escaped the plane and set off into the rainforest to find help.

Officials later said that the group had been fleeing threats from members of an armed group.

A search by 160 soldiers and 70 Indigenous people with knowledge of the jungle had been under way for the children.

Rescuers, assisted by search dogs, had found discarded fruit the children ate to survive, as well as improvised shelters made with jungle vegetation.

The area is home to jaguars, snakes and other predators, as well as drug smuggling groups.

Planes and helicopters from Colombia's army and air force participated in the rescue operations.

“Today we have had a magical day,” Mr Petro said in Bogota after announcing their rescue.

“They are weak. Let's let the doctors make their assessment.”

Worried that the children would continue wandering and become more difficult to find, the air force dropped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children's Indigenous language, telling them to stay where they were.

The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military dropped food parcels and bottled water.

Rescuers had also been broadcasting a message recorded by the children's grandmother, urging them not to move.

Children taught hunting skills

According to the military, rescuers found the children about five kilometres west of the crash site.

Huitoto children learn hunting, fishing and gathering. The children's grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, had told AFP the children are well acquainted with the jungle.

Mr Valencia told AFP that the children had been found by a native of Araracuara who had been participating in the search.

“I need a flight or a helicopter to go and get them urgently,” he said.

Army rescuers “immediately took charge of and stabilised” the siblings, who were to be transferred to San Jose del Guaviare, officials said.

“Tomorrow, depending on their medical assessment and condition, we hope they will be transferred to Bogota, to the military hospital,” Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez said.