Four Colombian Indigenous children who survived a plane crash in the country’s Amazon region and lived for more than five weeks in the jungle have been released from hospital after a 34-day stay, the government said on Friday.
The children, from one to 13-years-old, survived the May 1 crash that killed their mother and two other adults and were found last month.
The Indigenous children’s knowledge of the jungle, as well as the eldest sister’s courage, have been credited by officials with saving their lives.
“They have recovered size and weight, really they are very well,” Colombian Institute of Family Welfare director Astrid Caceres told journalists.
“The second phase of caring and protecting them begins.”
Photos released by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare show the children playing in a recovery room after being discharged from the Military Hospital in Bogota.
The children were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed in the early hours of May 1.
The Cessna single-engine propeller aeroplane was carrying three adults and the four children when the pilot declared an emergency due to an engine failure.
The small aircraft fell off the radar a short time later and a search for survivors began.
Cassava flour and some familiarity with the rainforest’s fruits were key to the children’s extraordinary survival in an area where snakes, mosquitoes and other animals abound.
The siblings will remain under the care of the child welfare institute because of a “complex family situation,” Ms Caceres said, and final custody arrangements for them will be decided in six months.
“We’re entering a transitional phase for the protection of the children,” Ms Caceres said.
Both the father of the two youngest children and their mother’s family have told media they want custody.
Source : ABC News
