Authorities had deployed more than 100 soldiers with sniffer dogs to search for the minors who were traveling in an airplane that crashed in the Amazon on May 1, killing three adults.
Four Indigenous children missing for more than two weeks after a plane crash in the Colombian Amazon have been found alive, President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday, declaring “joy for the country.”
Petro shared the news on Twitter, saying the children were discovered after “arduous search efforts” by the military.
Authorities had deployed more than 100 soldiers with sniffer dogs to search for the minors who were traveling in an airplane that crashed in the Amazon on May 1, killing three adults.
Rescuers believe the four children, aged 13, 9, 4 and an 11-month-old baby, have been wandering through the jungle in the southern Caqueta department since the crash.
The military stated earlier on Wednesday that rescuers’ search efforts were stepped up after they discovered a “shelter built in an improvised way with sticks and branches,” which led them to suspect there were survivors.
On the jungle floor, among the branches, were seen scissors and a hair tie in images provided by the military.
Previously, a baby’s drinking bottle and a half-eaten piece of fruit had been found.
On Monday and Tuesday, soldiers found the bodies of the pilot and two adults who had been flying from a jungle location to San Jose del Guaviare, one of the main cities in Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
One of the dead passengers, Ranoque Mucutuy, was the mother of the four children, who are from the Huitoto ethnicity.
Giant trees that can grow up to 40 meters tall, wild animals and heavy rainfall made the “Operation Hope” search difficult.