According to the AP news agency, the four children who miraculously survived in the Amazon rainforest ate cassava flour, then wild fruits during their 40 days of disappearance. The area where they were found is described as being full of snakes, mosquitoes and other animals.
AP quoted the children's uncle, Fidencio Valencia, as saying that the children took a package of fariña (a type of cassava flour commonly eaten by Amazonians) from the wreckage of the plane.
“After finishing the fariña, the children started eating nuts and wild fruits,” said Mr. Valencia.
Colombian rescuers found four children about 5 km from the plane crash site. (Photo: AP)
According to AP, the children were found by Colombian military rescuers on June 9 and were taken to hospital shortly after. The rescue operation ended happily 40 days after the plane carrying them and three other adults crashed on May 1.
The four Huitoto children, aged 13, 9 and 4 years and 11 months, will have to stay in hospital for observation and treatment for at least two weeks.
The four children, all siblings, the oldest being 13 years old and the youngest just 11 months old, are receiving medical care at a military hospital in the capital Bogotá (Colombia).
On June 10, Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez said the children were being rehydrated and could not yet chew food properly.
Military doctor Carlos Rincón said the four children suffered only minor injuries and hoped they would be discharged in the next two to three weeks.
The children are currently in good health, have begun to play enthusiastically and even ask for books to read, according to Colombian authorities.
The children were found 5km from the crash site in a forest, said General Pedro Sanchez, who is in charge of the rescue operation. When they were found, "they were very weak" and "had only enough strength to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves, or drink a drop of water in the forest".
The four children’s miraculous survival story brought a happy ending to a massive search operation (dubbed Operation Hope) carried out jointly by two often-at-odds forces, the Colombian army and an indigenous group of Amazonians.
On May 1, a private plane flying from the town of Araracuara in southern Colombia crashed. Three adults (the pilot, the children’s mother and an unidentified person) were killed, but the four children who were traveling with them were never found.
Tra Khanh (Source: AP)
Useful
Emotion
Creative
Unique
Source
Comment (0)