The Colombian military, firefighters and civil aviation authority officials discovered four children alive in a jungle where a plane had crashed two weeks earlier.
President Gustavo Petro revealed this on Wednesday saying that the discovery was in an indigenous community in the south of the country located in Colombia’s Caqueta province, local media said.
The plane – a Cessna 206 – was conveying seven people on a route between Araracuara, in Amazonas province, and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, when it issued a Mayday alert due to engine failure in the early hours of May 1.
“After arduous searching by our military, we have found alive the four children who went missing after a plane crash in Guaviare. A joy for the country,” Petro said in a message via Twitter.
Three adults, including the pilot, died as a result of the crash and their bodies were found inside the plane. The four children, aged 13, 9 and 4, as well as an 11-month-old baby, survived the impact.
Earlier information from the civil aviation authority, which coordinated the rescue efforts, indicated the children escaped the plane and set off into the rainforest to find rescue.
Rescuers, supported by search dogs, had previously found discarded fruit the children ate to survive, as well as improvised shelters made with jungle vegetation.
Airplanes and helicopters from both Colombia’s army and air force participated in the rescue operations.