Lesly Mukutuy, the 13-year-old 'hero' who kept her three siblings alive in the jungle
There are words that have been repeated over and over again in the last 24 hours in Colombia: "Miracle" is the first, because it is still hard to understand how four children could survive 40 days in a dense jungle, and "heroine" is undoubtedly the second, because the feat is attributed to the eldest sister, Lesly Mukutuy.
Lesly, 13, is the oldest of four siblings who had been wandering for 40 days in the jungles of Guaviare, where her plane crashed on 1 May and she survived with her siblings Soleiny Mukutuy, 9, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mukutuy, 5, and Cristin Neruman Ranoque, a baby who turned one year old in the jungle.
To Lesly "we also have to recognise not only her courage but also her leadership because we could say that it was because of her that the three little brothers were able to survive by her side, with her care, with her knowledge of the jungle", said the Minister of Defence, Iván Velásquez, today at the Military Hospital.
"It was the girl, the eldest, our heroine, who with her wisdom cared for and protected her siblings," the director of the Land Restitution Unit, Giovanny Yule, one of those who led the search from the institutional point of view, explained to EFE.
SURVIVING IN THE JUNGLE
After being taken out of the jungle yesterday by joint military and indigenous patrols, the children are now in this hospital in Bogotá, where they are "in acceptable clinical condition, despite the crisis and the situation experienced over the last 40 days", according to the medical report.
A "miracle" after more than a month in a dense, virgin jungle, where it rains almost all day and dangerous animals abound. Their great-uncle, Fidencio Valencia, says they managed to get some cassava flour (fariña) that they took with them on the plane, which also carried their mother and an indigenous leader who, along with the pilot, died in the crash.
And surely Lesly and her siblings' knowledge as Uitoto Indians of nature, of the fruits that can be eaten, has allowed them to feed themselves and stay alive, even though they look rachitic, a state they are trying to reverse in the hospital.
THE INDIGENOUS FACTOR
"As our elders say, someone guided them and someone guided them, they had the wisdom of how to eat, how to get water, and of course how to endure hunger," explains Yule, who as an indigenous Nasa was put at the centre of the search.
The story of how they survived both a plane crashing vertically into the ground and then the forty days is still unknown, but according to the indigenous "elders" "when someone is taken in or gets lost, they say that usually there are always people who guide them and lead them," says Yule.
The story of how they survived both a plane crashing vertically into the ground and then the forty days is still unknown, but according to the indigenous "elders" "when someone is taken in or gets lost, they say that usually there are always people who guide them and lead them", says Yule.
In this jungle, which includes the Chiribiquete National Park, there are uncontacted Indians, whom some, like Yule, consider key to the survival of the children, who came from the community of Araracuara, on the border between Caquetá and Amazonas.
The institutions, after several weeks of searching for them with a hundred soldiers, understood that the so-called Operation Hope needed ancestral knowledge and that members of the indigenous guard from four jungle departments should be added to the search.
They also included another type of knowledge, that of the elders: "There was a spiritual conversation with the spirits of the mother jungle and in this conversation, we made an exercise to open the way to be able to be in the territory and harmonise the jungle, to be able to establish an agreement so that the mother jungle can hand over the children," explains Yule.
In the jungle, each entity - river, tree, animal, mountain - has its own spirit and that is why this "pact" with the mother forest, they explain from the indigenous knowledge, is fundamental. The mother forest took them in and in a certain sense did not let them leave.
But she has finally "let them out" and, according to Yule, also to send a message: "indigenous children must be protected because they are being badly beaten".
Many of these cultures are being lost, with the extinction of peoples, and it is the children who suffer most from the violence as they are exposed to the violence of armed groups.
These four children have managed to survive forty days in the jungle but many others do not make it in their own communities, where armed groups come in to kill indiscriminately or recruit them, as happened to the four other children who were killed by FARC dissidents after they tried to flee their ranks a few weeks ago.
The lives of the four children rescued in the jungle, the miracle that gives hope to Colombia
After surviving a plane crash and spending 40 days in the Amazon jungle, the four rescued Colombian children returned to safety for the night and on Saturday were treated by doctors at the Central Military Hospital (HMC) in Bogota, who confirmed the miracle by saying they are in "acceptable clinical condition".
The images of the children in the jungle with the military and indigenous people who found them, as well as the videos of the evacuation of the area in a helicopter in adverse conditions have fuelled the hope of a country divided politically but united by a search that ended with positive news.
The children were found in a remote spot between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare where they had been searched for weeks by some 200 military personnel, including commandos from the army's Special Forces, and indigenous people from the area, all part of "Operation Hope".
A Colombian Air Force (FAC) helicopter took the children out of the jungle and flew them to San José del Guaviare, capital of the Guaviare department, where a C-295 aircraft configured as an ambulance picked them up and brought them to the capital, where they spent the night in a bed after more than 40 days in the open.
"After having made an initial multidisciplinary assessment of the young heroine Lesly and her three siblings, we found some children and a young woman in acceptable clinical condition, despite the crisis and the situation experienced in the last 40 days," said General Carlos Rincón, medical director of the HMC, at a press conference.
The rescued are the girl Lesly Mukutuy, 13 years old, who took care of her siblings Soleiny Mukutuy, 9, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mukutuy, 5, and Cristin Neruman Ranoque, a one year old baby, for 40 days.
"It was the girl, the eldest, our heroine, who with her wisdom cared for and protected her siblings," Giovanny Yule, director of the Land Restitution Unit, one of those who led the search from the institutional point of view, explained to EFE.
VISIT AND HOPE
A government delegation, led by President Gustavo Petro and the Minister of Defence, Iván Velásquez, visited the children on Saturday and stressed that they are in good condition, taking into account the odyssey they had lived through.
"It is a great joy to be able to express to you, not only this great news of the return of the children, but also the conditions in which we have seen them now," said Velásquez.
The minister told an anecdote: Tien Noriel turned five when they were in the jungle, while Cristin, the baby, celebrated her first birthday there.
On the other hand, Doctor Rincón assured that the children will be hospitalised for "more or less between two or three weeks" and will be attended to by a "multidisciplinary team".
He also said that they are undergoing clinical and imaging tests and nutritional and psychological recovery treatment, and stressed that "life-threatening conditions have been ruled out".
RESCUE AFTER INTENSE SEARCH
The accident occurred on 1 May when a Cessna 206 aircraft operated by Avianline Charter's company in which the four children were travelling with their mother, another adult and the pilot, crashed in the Colombian Amazon jungle, between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare.
A fortnight later, the authorities found the crashed plane and the three dead adults inside, but they did not find the children, so "Operation Hope" was launched, which mobilised more than 200 military personnel and indigenous people from the area in the jungle in search of the children.
Finally, on Friday, the 40th day after the accident, the miracle the country was waiting for took place and the four children were found alive.
However, the search is not over because the military will continue to try to find Wilson, the Belgian Malinois shepherd dog who helped find the four children and who went missing during the operation.