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After Plane Crashes In The Amazon, 13-Year-Old Keeps Siblings And 1 Year-Old Alive For Forty Days. [1]
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Date: 2023-06-11
On May 1, 13- year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy and her younger siblings Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, and 11 month-old infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy were going to leave their Amazonian village of Ararcuara and accompany their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia and respected Yarupari tribal elder and leader Herman Mendoza Hernández to the city of San Jose del Guaviare to meet their father, who had hastily left the area after he had received threats from armed men who were thought to belong to those who deforest the jungle.
The family belong to the Huitoto tribe, an Indigenous tribe that once numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and now number well less than 10,000.
The tribal members are taught to be well acquainted with the jungle, and Lesly was taught the knowledge of the rainforest by her mother.
Which was a blessing.
The family of five and the elder joined the pilot Hernando Murcia Morales in the Cessna 206 light aircraft, and less than an hour into the flight, the pilot declared an emergency due to an engine failure, and it went down and crashed into the jungle.
Rescuers located the wreckage 15 days after, on May 15.
The remains of the three adults were there, as they died on impact… but the children were nowhere to be seen.
Soon, rescuers found items left by the children, including a sippy cup, a childs scissors, a hair tie.
Diapers, half eaten avichure fruit, which is similar to kiwi/ passionfruit.
They found a makeshift shelter.
Small footprints were also discovered. And the search and rescue efforts reached a fever pitch that transfixed the nation.
Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, ordered a full scale search with hundreds of personnel, sniffer dogs, aircraft.
“The Military Forces and the Indigenous communities will continue in their tireless search to give the country the news it is waiting for. At this moment there is no other priority than to move forward with the search until they are found. The children’s lives are the most important thing.”
Likewise trained search and rescue teams joined.
As did a hundred Indigenous volunteers from a dozen differing tribes.
During the search which encompassed an area roughly twice the size of Washington D.C., helicopters dropped tens of thousands of leaflets in the childrens Huitoto language, as well as using speakers with a recorded message by their grandmother, imploring them to stay where they were and stay together.
As well as survival tips.
Also dropping boxes of food, water, anticeptic every few miles.
Tribal members came to the area to urge the jungle to give up the children, safe.
By this time, the children and infant were lost and on their own for 40 days, when one of the nomadic tribes that still call the jungle their home, and have little contact with government authorities, found them.
Covered with bug bites and dehydrated… but alive and well.
They then delivered them to the military.
Said their grandfather, Fidencio Valencia..
“For us this situation was like being in the dark, we walked for the sake of walking. Living for the sake of living because the hope of finding them kept us alive. When we found the children we felt joy, we don’t know what to do, but we are grateful to God.
When the plane crashed, they took fariña [from the wreckage], and with that they survived.
After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds.”
Lesly’s mother taught her which could be eaten and which looked similar but were deadly.
Gen Pedro Sánchez, who was in charge of the military rescue, said...
“The children were already very weak. Their strength was only enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the jungle.”
The president and his family visited the children in the Bogota hospital, and were overjoyed.
“Today we have had a magical day. The jungle saved them. They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.
The meeting of knowledge: indigenous and military.
Here is a different path for Colombia. I believe that this is the true path of peace.”
The children all spoke of the days that they were comforted and watched over by a sniffer dog, a Belgian Shepherd named Wilson, who left as soon as the tribal members who rescued them came close.
Now the search is underway to find Wilson.
They have promised that he will not be left behind.
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As for the family…
Lesly has vowed to carry on her mothers passion and respect and pride for her roots and culture.
And instill it in her siblings.
She desires to make her mother proud.
Indeed, how proud her mother already is.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
She has also vowed to join her father in protecting her jungle home… before it is gone.
[END]
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/11/2174709/-After-Plane-Crashes-In-The-Amazon-13-Year-Old-Keeps-Siblings-And-1-Year-Old-Alive-For-Forty-Days
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