Search is over. „Indigenous communities and military forces together found the children after 40 days,” President Gustavo Pedro said, celebrating the discovery of the four children, ages 13, 9, 4 and 11 months, in the Colombian jungle. Old Child – Survived a minor plane crash and was lost for over a month. Success seemed unlikely given the difficulty of surviving in wet terrain where jaguars, snakes or poisonous plants survive well. 'Operation Hope’ is the name of the government’s mission to find them.
The president said cooperation between the General Force and indigenous groups from the Siona and Araraguara regions of the Amazon jungle was key to finding them. „The talk between the military and the civil forces, they know more about the jungle than we do, was absolutely effective and an example of what this kind of alliance can do for the country,” Pedro said. Pedro Sánchez, the commander of the special forces, explained recently that a total of 184 people „comb” the forest every day, 112 general forces and 72 tribesmen.
„They understand the jungle well, they know how to interpret the tracks very well. One of them found the plane,” Sánchez told EL PAÍS of his domestic teammates. At that point they discovered the bodies of three adults, including the children’s mother, and realized that all four children could still be alive. The General Force, for its part, contributed to indigenous knowledge with technology and various strategies: they hung whistles on construction tapes so that children could make noise if they found them; They lit up the sky with headlights to get your attention; They put on speakers with the grandmother’s voice in Uitto language, in which she tells the children to stay still to find them. “From the air, with two black spot And nine flights, we’ve launched 10,000 flyers in the local language and food boxes,” Sanchez said. Among the searchers was a dog named Wilson, who helped track down the children in the search process, but got lost along the way and has yet to be found.
„Thank you Father Creator, indigenous brothers, military forces and organizations that supported the search,” OPIAC, or the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon, posted on its social networks. „The survival of children is an example of knowledge and relationship with the natural environment of life taught from the mother’s womb,” they added.
A small footprint, a bottle and something else were the signs that the search teams found and allowed them to maintain hope. There were times when they thought they were only 200 or 300 meters from the little ones, but they couldn’t notice in the dense forest. Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez counted They realized that they were consuming food that they had dropped from the air, and tribal groups said that because of the signs of this consumption, children should eat, not animals. „It has put us in a direction, almost the minors have already been given a circle,” the minister said of the minors’ trajectory.
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President Pedro said the children will now be cared for by health officials. On May 1, the day the four of them survived a minor plane crash, their mother Magdalena Mukudui died. Since then, their father, Manuel Ranoc, the governor of the Puerto Sapalo indigenous reservation, has been searching for them in the jungle where they left their land before them because their lives were threatened by an armed group. The family hoped to reunite and relocate to a city free of bullets. An accident shattered that dream. After 40 days of uncertainty, Manuel Ranoc could be reunited with his children.
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