Their sunken faces reveal dark, piercing eyes. Their arms are skeletal. Lesly, 13, Seleiny, 9, Tien Noriel, 4, and Cristin, 1, were found safe after 40 days of wandering in the Amazon rainforest. On May 1, their plane crashed south of Caqueta, Colombia. Since then, a hundred soldiers and dozens of natives have been trying to trace their trail thanks to the precious traces they could leave in the thick vegetation.
The young children were discovered Friday afternoon June 9 just a few miles from the wreckage. They were dehydrated, had symptoms of malnutrition and numerous insect bites on their bodies. A medical team immediately attended to them, and they were airlifted from the jungle to the city of Bogota. They are now hospitalized in an army health establishment, where they are undergoing a renutrition process. A hospitalization that could last between two and three weeks.
Overall, the children are not in a particularly poor state of health: “They are very weak”, but they are in “good hands”, declared the grandfather of the toddlers to the press. Astrid Caceres, director of the Institute of Family Welfare, explained that the children “spoke little” but were “joyful”: “They are starting to want to play, Cristin in particular”, she rejoiced. The military doctor simply noted a few “skin lesions and bites”. A general state of health that is almost a miracle, after 40 days spent in the Amazon rainforest.
How were these young people able to survive for so long in the jungle, without food or water? Especially since their small group included a one-year-old child, which requires special attention. According to the children’s family, the siblings were able to survive thanks to the eldest, Lesly. The 13-year-old fed her siblings Fariña, a kind of flour made from bitter yucca, seeds found in the jungle and fruits. The young girl knew “which fruits she could not eat because in the jungle there are a lot of toxic fruits, which scratch,” her aunt explained in an interview with Caracol Noticias, a Colombian television program. She also knew how to take care of a baby, because from the age of 5, “she had taken care of her little brother and helped her mother”, adds the aunt.
At the same time, the 13-year-old girl managed to shelter them by building small wooden cabins. For the aunt of the siblings, there is no doubt that the young girl is at the origin of the constructions. She was even said to have been inspired by a game they both played: “We used to build little huts when we played, and from the pictures they sent us, I think it’s she who made it. I felt it in my heart because she has the ability to learn a lot of things and I think she was the one who allowed her little brothers to survive too,” the woman said. The grandfather called them “children of the bush”.
For the National Organization of Amerindian Peoples of Colombia (Opiac), there is no doubt that their indigenous condition and this very special connection with nature has worked in their favor: “The survival of children is the demonstration of knowledge and the relationship that the natives have with nature, a bond taught from the womb of the mother”, is it written in a press release from the Opiac. “They are indigenous children and they know the jungle very well. They knew what to eat and what not to eat. They managed to survive thanks to that and their spiritual strength,” assured AFP Luis Acosta, who took part in the search operations. “We have a special connection with nature,” says AFP Javier Bettencourt, another leader of ONIC. “The world needs this special relationship with nature, to favor those who, like the natives, live in the forest and take care of it”.
