Tragic first words spoken by children who survived `40-day` ordeal in Colombian jungle revealed
Days after four Colombian miracle children were rescued after a 40-day ordeal in the unforgiving Amazon rainforest, the authorities have revealed the tragic first words they each muttered as help arrived for them.
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Who are the children and what led to the plane crash?
Upon being found by the search party, four-year-old Tien Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy said: "My mother is dead."
Meanwhile, 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, the eldest of the lot and responsible for keeping her siblings alive said, "I'm hungry."
Lesly told her family from the hospital where she is currently admitted that her mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, was alive after the plane crash. She fought hard to survive for four days before eventually telling her children to leave her behind and asking Lesly to take care of her younger siblings.
WATCH | Gravitas: Miracle! Colombian children survive 40 days in Amazon x According to grandfather Narciso Mucutuy, it was Lesly that pulled the youngest child, Cristin, from the plane after the crash and managed to protect her throughout the campaign.
"She saw the feet of her littlest sister where the three dead were and she pulled her out," said Mucutuy. What happened in the forest? During the early hours of May 1, a Cessna 206, carrying seven individuals from Araracuara in Amazonas province to San Jose del Guaviare in Guaviare province, issued a distress signal due to engine failure. While three adults, including the pilot and the mother, died, the children were left to fend for themselves.
Their disappearance led to a massive military-led search operation in which more than one hundred Colombian special forces troops and 70 indigenous scouts scanned the deep forest.
According to the authorities, the four kids managed to use their Indigenous heritage and knowledge about the jungle to plot a survival plan.
"Days after the crash, they ate the farina which they had carried there... but they (eventually) ran out of food and decided to look for a place where they could stay alive. They were malnourished but fully conscious and lucid when we found them," said Pedro Arnulfo Sanchez Suarez, spokesperson of Colombian military special forces.
"Their indigenous origins allowed them to acquire a certain immunity against diseases in the jungle and having knowledge of the jungle itself - knowing what to eat and what not to eat - as well as finding water kept them alive - which would not have been possible (if they) were not used to that type of hostile environment," he added.
The story of the four kids, which included an infant surviving the hostile nature of the virgin Amazon for 40 days on the trot is making international news.