The brothers, aged thirteen, nine, five and one, are “very weak” but “happy to see their family,” says their grandfather, Fidencio Valencia. They still speak little, but two of them have started playing.
The four children were found on Friday after more than a month of searches by the military and the local population.
They had disappeared after the plane they were on crashed on May 1st. Their mother and two pilots were killed in the crash.
Rescuers tracked them down after spotting signs of their presence in the jungle, including footprints and fruit with bite marks.
The 4 children saved in the jungle and the fragility of our children
ardon violet
Two of the children, the one-year-old and the five-year-old, spent their birthdays in the jungle, while the eldest Lesly, 13, guided them through the 40-day ordeal.
They survived by eating flour they found in the wreckage of the plane and then seeds found in the forest, his grandfather said.
According to the doctors, their state of health is acceptable considering the situation: they are out of danger, they have a nutritional deficiency that the hospital is trying to remedy, but they made it with only some soft tissue damage, punctures from ‘insect and peelings.
The Cessna 206 plane on which the little ones and their mother were traveling, before the accident, was flying from Araracuara, in the province of Amazonas, to San José del Guaviare, when it sent an SOS message due to an engine failure .
The bodies of the three adults were found at the crash site by the army, but it appeared that the children had escaped the crash and had gone into the rainforest for help.
In May, rescuers recovered the items left by the children, including a bottle, a pair of scissors, a hair tie and an improvised shelter.