A miraculous story that mixes pain, hope and a happy ending. As the hours go by, details emerge about the children found in the jungle after 40 days. They escaped a plane crash, and now the community is celebrating.
The ages
Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy, the youngest of the four, celebrated her first year of life on May 26, while she was lost in the forest. On that date, the Armed Forces Command had invited the whole country to celebrate the birthday of the newborn with a prayer for her and her little brothers: Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy aged 13, Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy aged nine, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy aged four
The clues
Small footprints and wild fruit that looked like they had been bitten off. These are the traces that gave hope to the rescuers. The first objects found by the researchers in the forest were a pair of purple scissors and a hair elastic, reports the BBC by publishing the photos. At another point, however, a piece of metal was found that appeared to be part of a telephone. However, it was the remains of the fruit that suggested that the children might still be alive: members of the Huitoto indigenous group hoped that the brothers’ knowledge of the wild fruits could give them a better chance of survival.
The role of the grandmother
According to the Colombian media, the children survived thanks to their “ancestral knowledge”. According to John Moreno, a Guanano indigenous leader from Vaupés, the four were raised by their grandmother, who “is knowledgeable in the indigenous protection of Araracuara. They managed to survive thanks to the traditional knowledge that he taught them”. For Sandra Vilardy, deputy minister of environmental policy and normalisation, if the children were able to survive in what is reputed to be one of the densest and most virgin forests in the country, it is thanks to the “messages from their community and, of course, the knowledge they have provided them previously”. The risks in the forest, Vilardy said, are many and concern not only “the very limited conditions that the jungle offers in terms of food ” but also those “associated with felines, snakes, spiders, scorpions, unstable and dangerous terrains”.