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“A joy for the whole country! The four children who went missing 40 days ago in the Colombian jungle have been found alive” Petro wrote on Twitter.
His post included a photo of several adults, some in military fatigues, taking care of children who were sitting on a tarp in the middle of the dense forest.
“They are vulnerable,” Pietro told the press in Bogota. “Let’s let the doctors do their assessment.”
Originally from Uitoto’s native group, the kids — ages 13, 9, 4, and 1 — have been wandering alone in the woods since May 1, when the Cessna 206 they were traveling in crashed.
The military found the bodies of three adults who were with them – their mother, the pilot and a relative – at the crash site.
Since then, there has been an intense search by 160 soldiers and 70 Aboriginal people with intimate knowledge of the bush for these young men, drawing worldwide interest.
The area is home to tiger jaguars, snakes and other predators, as well as armed drug-trafficking groups, but persistent evidence—footprints, diapers, half-eaten fruit—leads authorities to believe they were on the right track.
Fearing that the children would continue to wander and make it more difficult to locate them, the Air Force dropped 10,000 flyers in the jungle with instructions in Spanish, the indigenous children’s language, telling them to stay where they were.
Leaflets also included survival tips, and the military dropped food parcels and bottled water.
Rescuers also broadcast a message recorded by the children’s grandmother, urging them not to move.
hoitoto Children learn to hunt, fish and gather and children’s grandfather learns, Fidencio ValenciaHe had told AFP that the children are well acquainted with the forest.
Petro told the media upon his return from Cuba, where he signed a six-month truce with the last active guerrilla group in Colombia, ELN.
“Moving closer and making peace in the agreement moving forward with the NLA… Now I’m back and the first news is that the indigenous communities that were searching and the military found the children after 40 days,” he said.
He added, “They were on their own, they made it on their own. An example of sheer survival that will go down in history.”
Pietro had announced that the children had been found alive 17 days after their disappearance, but retracted the announcement the following day, saying he had received false information.
Valencia, the children’s grandfather, confirmed to AFP on Friday that the children had been found.
“I need a flight or a helicopter to go and get them urgently,” he said.
He watches Columbia plane crash: Four babies found alive in Amazon after 40 days
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