Featured Image Credit: Ministry of National Defense of Colombia / NBC
Topics: News
Kit Roberts
A 13-year-old girl kept her siblings alive in the Amazon jungle for 40 days by using 'survival games'.
Rescuers have praised the eldest of the four, 13-year-old Lesly, for using her knowledge and skills to help her siblings stay alive. This included playing 'survival games' to find fruit and even grinding flour to survive the Colombian jungle.
The four children, Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin, went missing after a light aircraft they were traveling on crashed shortly after taking off. The plane went down in the jungle of Colombia's Caquetá province on 1 May after issuing a mayday warning over engine failure.
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Tragically, their mother, an indigenous leader, and the two pilots were all killed in the accident.
An enormous search was launched after the children were discovered to be missing from the wreckage, with rescuers tracking their footprints and finding half-eaten fruit.
Now, after a weeks-long search the military signal 'miracle', meaning a missing child had been found, was broadcast four times over military radios to signal all four children had been found alive.
Lesly had used her knowledge to help survive. This included knowing which fruits were safe, and even securing a camp using her hair ribbons.
The children's grandmother, Fatima Valencia, said that she is very grateful that the children are alive after their ordeal.
She said: "I am very grateful, and to mother earth as well, that they were set free. She [Lesly] gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume."
John Moreno, a leader of the Guanano group in southeast Colombia, said: "They were raised by their grandmother. They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive."
Many have heaped praise on Lesly for using her skills and know-how to save her life and the lives of her siblings.
Colombian defence minister Ivan Velasquez said: "It is thanks to [Lesly], her value and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle. In general the children, the boy and the girls are in an acceptable state, according to the medical reports they are out of danger."
All four children are currently in hospital in Bogota. They were found bitten and dehydrated, but alive.
Military doctor Carlos Rincon said: "We will begin the process of incorporating food when we complete the process of clinical examinations that will be done today. If things go well, we believe they will stay in the hospital for two to three weeks."