he four children who were found alive 40 days after their light plane crashed in the Amazon jungle have been reunited with their relatives.
The siblings – Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin, who had just had his first birthday – had to fend for themselves after their mum and the pilots died in the accident in a remote part of Colombia.
The country’s army on Saturday tweeted pictures of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets.
The children have been reunited with relatives as they recover in hospital.
Their grandfather Fidencio Valencia said they’re “very weak” but “happy to see their family”.
A group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets
/ Colombian Presidency/AFP via GetTheir grandmother, Fatima Valencia, said their mother Lesly was used to looking after them and that helped them survive: “She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume.”
The plane was found on May 16 but the children, from the Huitoto indigenous group, kept on the move, eluding searchers.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said their rescue was “a joy for the whole country”.
He added: “The jungle saved them. They are children of the jungle. Now they are also children of Colombia.”
Colombia’s Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez, who visited them in the hospital with President Gustavo Petro on Saturday, praised Lesly for taking care of her younger siblings.
“It is thanks to her, her value and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle,” Mr Velasquez said.
“In general the children, the boy and the girls are in an acceptable state, according to the medical reports they are out of danger.”
