Latin America

Mat Youkee in Bogotá, and Emma Graham-Harrison
Sat 10 Jun 2023 14.45 EDT

Afew tantalising clues kept the rescuers going. The remains of fruit with bitemarks made by small human teeth, a pair of scissors and nappies in the rainforest mud. All offered hope that four children, who had miraculously survived a plane crash that killed their mother, the pilot and the only other adult on board, also survived the dangers of the Amazon.

The oldest was only 13 when the plane went down on 1 May in southern Colombia. The youngest would mark his first birthday lost under the dense green canopy of trees and vegetation, alive with jaguars, poisonous snakes and other threats.

The children are Lesly Jacobo Bonbaire, 13; Solecni Ranoque Mucutuy, 9; Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, 4; and Cristian Neryman Ranoque Mucutuy, now one.

. . .

The education the children got from their grandmother, a respected elder in the Araracuara indigenous territory, was almost certainly vital to their survival.

“This is a virgin forest, thick and dangerous,” John Moreno, an Indigenous leader from nearby Vaupés, told local media outlet Cambio.

“They would have needed to draw on ancestral knowledge, in order to survive.”

In addition to evading jungle predators, the children had survived heavy storms, and the area also hosts armed groups.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/10/colombian-children-found-alive-five-weeks-after-amazon-jungle-plane-crash