How are the health of the children who were rescued after the plane where they were traveling crashed?

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The four children rescued from the Amazon jungle in Colombia, after being missing for 40 days, received a medical discharge after a month in hospital. The children were being treated at the Bogotá military hospital, the state agency that protects children reported this Friday and will have temporary custody of the children.

The Mucutuy siblings, ages 13, 9, 5 and 1, “have regained weight, they are actually very well,” said Astrid Cáceres, director of the Colombian Institute for Family Well-being (ICBF), at a press conference.

According to Cáceres, there are no physical consequences of the 40 days they wandered through the Amazon jungle, after a plane crash in which her mother and two other adults died. About baby Cristin, who was less than a year old when the accident was recorded on past May 1, she is “completely recovered in terms of physical development,” added the official.

Until now, only videos of the moment in which a group of indigenous people found them among the vegetation are known. According to reports, in these images they looked emaciated and underweight. In the hospital they received special treatment and were fed with preparations typical of the Uitoto people such as fariña, cassava flour. The ICBF reported that it will have authority over minors for at least six months, because “more research is required on the state of the context and the family framework” of the children.

After the rescue, a legal battle broke out between the maternal grandparents and the father of the two minor children over who will have custody. According to a complaint from the grandfather, the man beat the mother. While that happens, they will live together with other children in an ICBF shelter, whose location was not revealed. Cáceres only assured that they will be in a rural area, where they will feel “comfortable.” “The second phase of this operation begins, which is to care for and protect them until we have safe environments for care and protection,” he added.

The father had assured that they were at risk of recruitment by FARC guerrilla dissidents who did not demobilize in 2017. Despite the rumors, Cáceres ruled out that they had had contact with any illegal group in the area where the public force and indigenous people traced their tracks. The Colombian government jealously protected the brothers from being exposed to the media. However, the president, Gustavo Petro, recently announced that a documentary on the rescue of children in the Amazon jungle is being prepared.