Colombian television broadcast emotional images Sunday of the moment when four children who survived in the jungle for 40 days after a plane crash met their rescuers.
The images, taken on a mobile phone, show the four weary children, the smallest in the arms of one of the rescuers.
The Huitoto Indigenous children - ages 13, nine, five and one - were found alive Friday by rescuers, having wandered alone in the Amazon rainforest since the crash of a small Cessna 206 plane in which they were travelling with their mother, the pilot and another adult.
All three adults died in the accident.
An air force video showed a helicopter using lines to pull the youngsters up because it couldn’t land in the dense rainforest where they were found. The craft flew off in the fading light, the air force said it was going to San Jose del Guaviare, a small town on the edge of the jungle.
No details were released on how the four siblings aged 13, 9, 4 and 11 months managed to survive on their own for so long, though they belong to an Indigenous group that lives in the remote region.
Petro called them an “example of survival” and predicted their saga “will remain in history.”In the video released Sunday, the children seemed to be emaciated from their time spent in the wilderness. Their rescuers- Indigenous members of the search group - are seen singing, smoking tobacco - a plant considered sacred among many jungle residents - and celebrating.
Interviewed on public broadcast channel RTVC, the Indigenous rescue team that found the children in the jungle recounted the first moments of the meeting.
"The eldest daughter, Lesly, with the little one in her arms, ran towards me. Lesly said: 'I'm hungry,'" said Nicolas Ordonez Gomes, one of the search and rescue crew.
"One of the two boys was lying down. He got up and said to me: 'My mom is dead.'"
"We immediately followed up with positive words, saying that we were friends, that we were sent by the family, the father, the uncle. That we were family!," Ordonez Gomes added.
According to Ordonez Gomes, the boy only replied: "I want some bread and sausage."
The family of the children clung to hope that the siblings' familiarity with the jungle would see them through.
Another rescuer explained an Indigenous tradition: "In the beliefs of our elders, if you find a turtle, you can ask it for a wish, and that wish will come true."
He said the team had come upon a turtle in the jungle, only half an hour before finding the four siblings.
"I told it: 'Find me the children,'" the rescuer said.
AFP