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Rescuers looking for four indigenous children lost in the Colombian Amazon jungle after a plane crash one month ago say evidence suggests the youngsters may still be alive.
A desperate search for the children – aged 11 months, four, nine, and 13 – continues after the light aircraft they were travelling in crashed on May 1 .
The crash claimed the lives of the children’s mother Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, the pilot, and an indigenous leader.
There were no signs of the children when the wreckage was recovered by the Colombian military – leading to a massive search operation in the southeast of the country to find them.
More than 100 men are involved in the rescue mission, and army leaders claim it is ‘highly probable’ the children are still alive due to the clues they have been finding.
The latest hint about the children’s possible whereabouts is a footprint found on the muddy ground in the jungle, that army officials believe is that of 13-year-old Lesly
Soldiers search for the missing children in the Colombian Amazon rainforest, in the southwestern municipality of Solano
The latest hint about the children’s possible whereabouts is a footprint found on the muddy jungle floor. Army officials believe is that of 13-year-old Lesly, the eldest of the missing children.
Satellite images have since revealed a path the children took from the plane wreck, and rescuers have come across some of their belongings – a pair of shoes and a nappy have been found – a makeshift shelter and a half-eaten fruit.Â
Last week, Colombia’s president came under fire when he tweeted that the children had been found but later deleted it, saying the information could not be confirmed.
Leaders from the Huitoto indigenous group expressed hope that the children’s knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills should give them better odds at being found alive.
Another picture released by the Colombian army shows a footprint found in the forest in a rural area of the municipality of Solano, Caqueta, in southwestern Colombia yesterday
‘Based on the evidence, we concluded that the children are alive,’ rescue team leader General Pedro Sanchez told W Radio on Monday.
‘If they were dead, it would be easy to find them because they would be still and the sniffer dogs would find them,’ he added.
On the morning of May 1, a Cessna 206 airplane left a jungle area known as Araracuara heading for the town of San Jose del Guaviare in the Colombian Amazon.
Minutes after starting the 350km (217-mile) journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars.
Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane, which was wedged vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.
But the children – Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin – were missing.
Some 200 soldiers and indigenous people with knowledge of the terrain have been combing a dense jungle area of some 320 square kilometers (124 square miles) – about double the size of Washington DC.
The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.
The Colombian military has been following the possible trail of the four missing children
The crash is believed to have happened due a mechanical failure on May 1. The front of the aircraft was found completely destroyedÂ
The missing children include four-year-old Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, pictured here with his mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, who died in the plane crashÂ
Nine-year-old Soleiny Mucutuy, pictured, is missing in the jungle with his three brothersÂ
The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military has dropped food parcels and bottled water for the children.
On Sunday, the army placed powerful searchlights with a range of up to 3km in the area ‘so that the minors can approach us’, search team member Colonel Fausto Avellaneda told the Noticias Caracol TV show.
Rescuers have also been broadcasting a message recorded by the children’s grandmother, urging them to stay put so the soldiers can find them.
The general said the search team believed it had come to within 100m (328ft) of the children, but storms, thick vegetation and marshy terrain prevented them from reaching the kids.
Air force helicopters and satellite images are being used in the search in an area that is home to jaguars, pumas, snakes and other predators, as well as armed groups that smuggle drugs and terrorize local populations.
Members of the indigenous community are holding traditional ceremonies ‘speaking to the jungle’ and asking it to give up the children, according to the government.
In photographs released by the military, scissors, shoes, and hair ties could be seen among branches on the jungle floor.
A baby’s drinking bottle and half-eaten pieces of fruit had been spotted before the shelter’s discovery.
More than 100 soldiers with sniffer dogs are following the trail of the four missing children in the Colombian Amazon
Colombian president Gustavo Petro declared the rescue a ‘joy for the country’Â – only for his military and search and rescue teams to clarify that they had no found the children
A baby bottle and a pair of scissors were among items the rescuers found which gave them hope of survivors as they searched the jungle for the missing children
The plane crash happened in Solano, Caqueta. The front of the aircraft was found destroyed
More than 100 soldiers with sniffer dogs walked through the jungle in the south of Colombia searching for the missing children
Sniffer dogs and three helicopters were deployed in search of the children, but wild animals, heavy rain and tree height have prolonged the rescue operation
A half-eaten piece of fruit was another item found by rescuers, giving them hope the children will soon be found
A label of a headband found in the forest also suggested the children could be alive
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 east where grasslands give way to Amazon rainforest.
Trees that can grow up to 40m tall and heavy rainfall have made the search difficult.
Authorities have not officially said what caused the plane crash.
It is a region with few roads and is also difficult to access by river, so plane transport is common.
The Huitoto community, also spelled Witoto, are known for living in harmony with the jungle.
The community is highly skilled in hunting, fishing and gathering, which might have helped the children to survive.
Exploitation, disease and assimilation have reduced the Huitoto population sharply over many decades.
