Four missing children from Colombian jungle crash found alive after 40 days

Four children from an indigenous community in Colombia who were missing in the jungle for more than five weeks after a plane they were on crashed in the south of the country have been found alive. Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced this on Friday, international news agencies report.

The children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1, were rescued by Colombian soldiers near the border between the provinces of Caqueta and Guaviare, not far from where the plane crashed on May 1. Three adult occupants, including the mother of the children and the pilot, were killed in the crash, it turned out when the wreckage was found more than two weeks later.

“A joy for the whole country!” said Petro on Twitter. “The four children who went missing in the Colombian jungle forty days ago have been found alive.” The children were alone when they were found, and are now receiving medical treatment, he added at a press conference.

Read also: Four children have been wandering through the jungle for weeks. Will Colombia find them in time?

Airplanes and sniffer dogs

An intensive search for the children, who were not found in the wreckage and who appeared to have entered the jungle on foot in search of help, gripped many in Colombia and beyond. Colombian Air Force planes and helicopters were deployed, and rescuers used sniffer dogs.

The plane, a Cessna 206, was en route from Araracuara, Amazonas province, to San Jose del Guaviare when it sent out a distress signal due to engine failure. The search found fruit that the children ate, as well as makeshift shelters made from vegetation.

“They were together, they are weak, let’s let the doctors evaluate them,” Petro said. “They found them, which makes me very happy.”