Despite adversity, indigenous children who got lost in the Colombian Amazon never lost consciousness and remember everything, said on Sunday (11) a local ranger from the team that found them after 40 days in the jungle.

“What we admire about four minors, regardless of the girl who does not speak, is that they did not pass out. They remembered everything,” said Henry Guerrero, a member of the local guard who, along with the military, rescued minors on Friday (9).

Rescuing children lost in the jungle and found 40 days later – Photo: Colombian Air Force/AFP/ND handout

Brothers Leslie (13), Soleini (9), Thien Noriel (5) and Christine (1) from the Huitoto community managed to survive by wandering the Amazon jungle between the southern departments of Guaviare and Caqueta, home to jaguars, cougars and poisonous snakes.

The four were traveling with three adults, including their mother, who died in a May 1 plane crash.

Local security and site access

Local guards were the first to arrive at the place where the minors were. Two of them were celebrating their birthday in the middle of the forest.

“The first thing they asked (told us) was that they were hungry. They wanted to eat rice pudding, they wanted to eat bread, they just ate, ate,” Guerrero said in press statements outside a military hospital in Bogota where children are recovering.

“I couldn’t walk anymore” – The kids were “emaciated” and “weak” so they were in the same place for four days where “they had a little kambuchito (makeshift tent) with an awning and they’re there on the floor, was a rag.”

Thien Noriel “was already very weak, he could no longer walk,” he remarked.

They managed to stay in the jungle for 40 days, because Leslie “very cleverly” packed a suitcase with flour, which was on the plane. They also took a towel, a worn-out flashlight, two cell phones “with which I think they played at night,” a music box, clothes, and soft drinks.

For local guards with deep knowledge of the jungle, the athletic shoes that Leslie “dropped” as they moved disorientated “were the key to finding them” two kilometers from the final search starting point on Friday.

According to the authorities, the minors were found five kilometers from the place where the plane was stuck between trees and with a destroyed frontal part.

One of the first people to contact the children, Guerrero indicated that the children were near water sources and that Leslie said she heard a message from her grandmother in Witoto asking them to stop walking. The message was broadcast over loudspeakers from military helicopters.

“The elder said that she heard all the messages from the helicopter that they were looking for her (…), but they didn’t know where she was going,” due to the density of the forest.

“Despair”

The lifeguard also warned the children’s father, Manuel Miller Ranoke, about the rescue. Manuel also worked on the search for several weeks. “I told my father, I was the one who told him first: Miller, they found your children,” he said.

The discovery came as the local guard began to despair. Together with the military, they tracked the jungle for a month with the support of search dogs.

“After 30 days of searching, we were already a little desperate, the weather was driving us to despair,” he said. But, “when we found the children, it was really a great happiness (…) It filled us with great joy,” he commented.