Petro decorates the rescuers of the children lost 40 days in the jungle of Colombia

The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, delivered this Monday a total of 86 medals to the military, indigenous peoples and institutions that participated for 40 days in the search for lThe four children lost in the Colombian jungle who were rescued on June 9.

In the middle of a sunny morning, the president led an act in the Plaza de Armas of the Casa de Nariño, in which he put the operation as an example of the achievements that the sum of Western traditional knowledge and ancestral knowledge can have.

The rescue of the four minors was possible thanks to the joint work of uniformed personnel from the Colombian Army and the Air Force with indigenous communities, who applied their own knowledge to contribute to the mission.

The children were lost in the jungle for forty days after the plane in which they were traveling with their mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, crashed in the jungle between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviaré, on May 1st. The pilot and another passenger also lost their lives in the accident.

The four minors then undertook a journey in which they left some traces that allowed the group of people who were looking for them to find them alive and were transferred to a military hospital in Bogotá, where they continue to recover.

At the award ceremony on Monday, President Petro said that a few days after beginning the search he received a call from Fidencio Valencia, the children’s great-uncle, who told him that “the spirits of the jungle” said that something was moving. in that territory that did not allow “returning” them.

“I listened to his thesis, which was that military action could be combined with indigenous spirituality and I gave that order,” revealed the Colombian president.

Petro added that in countries like Germany and France, where he has been touring in recent weeks, “they cannot imagine defending themselves for forty days in the jungle alone” and that the children were able to do it “because they had the ancestral knowledge” that they had passed on.

He said the success of joint work of the military and indigenous it was the triumph of life. “You with satellites -the military-, you indigenous people with yagé and invoking the spirits of the jungle; both, together, found life,” said the president.

That, he said, has to start “a phase of understanding between us” in Colombia, national understanding without any exclusions, with one goal: life.

There was a special moment to recognize Wilson, one of the dogs that made up the search team for the four indigenous children and who ended up lost in the Colombian jungle.

President Petro presented Drugia, the canine’s mother, with two medals and gave a special greeting to Army soldier Anderson Acosta, Wilson’s companion and guide.

On Monday morning it was learned that Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy, the youngest of the four siblings, who turned one year old in the middle of the journey, was released from the military hospital where the minors are being recovered.

The Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF), the entity in charge of determining who should have custody of the minors, continues to advance in the process of recognition of rights to make a decision on the future of the little ones.

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