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The “heroic” action of Lesly, the older sister of the children found in the jungle of Colombia

() — The eldest of four children who survived a plane crash in the Amazon jungle has been praised for her “heroic role” in keeping her siblings alive during the ordeal, her grandfather said, as search efforts focus on track down Wilson, a missing search and rescue dog who kept them company.

The Mucutuy children, ranging in age from 1 to 13, survived in the dense jungle for more than a month after their plane crashed on May 1, killing their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, the pilot and another passenger.

In recordings shared online by the Colombian Ministry of Defense, the children’s grandfather, Narciso Mucutuy, detailed how 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy cared for his younger siblings during the traumatic experience.

“When she looked up and saw that her mother was dead, she saw her little sister’s foot and she pulled them out,” she said.

She also recounted that the girl Cristin survived thanks to her older sister slowly feeding her from the bottle until it ran out, adding that she had also given her water.

The children, including Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, and Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, survived by eating fariña, a coarse cassava flour commonly used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon region, authorities said Saturday. .

Authorities attributed the children’s ability to survive to their indigenous heritage. “It is their learning from indigenous families, their learning of living in the jungle that has saved them,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

The children had originally waited near the crash site for four days, waiting to be rescued, their grandfather said, but they moved and left signs where they slept, hoping someone would find them.

Mucutuy says that Lesly told her that she had no idea where they were going and that in the end she couldn’t keep walking. At that point, the children decided to wait for “the miracle that finally happened,” she said.

During their ordeal, the children had seen movement in the jungle but “hid when they saw helicopters or people from the community or members of the army because they thought they could punish them.”

At one point, the children encountered Wilson, a Special Forces search dog who “became their faithful friend and accompanied them on several occasions,” their grandfather said.

Wilson, a Belgian shepherd, went missing during search operations and was last seen on May 18, according to authorities. The children “spent three or four days with Wilson and said they found (him) quite skinny,” said Colombian Military Forces spokesman Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez Suárez.

Finding him is now the main objective of the Army.

We have a saying: ‘We never leave an item behind’, except for the four children, we wouldn’t leave Wilson. But we are also aware of how difficult it is to find it in the depths of a hostile but blessed jungle,” said Suárez.

The four children are currently recovering in a Bogotá hospital, where they were transferred on Saturday by air ambulance.

His disappearance triggered a massive army-led search operation involving more than 100 Colombian special forces soldiers and more than 70 indigenous scouts who combed the jungle.

Hopes of their survival dwindled as the weeks passed, but eventually the four were found in an area cleared of trees.

His father, Manuel Ranoque, who had collaborated in the search operations, told the press on leaving the hospital that he had never lost hope.

“I believe in the jungle, which is our mother, and that is why I have always kept the faith, and I would say that both the jungle and nature have never betrayed me,” Ranoque said.

Doctors expect the children to remain under observation in the hospital for up to three weeks.

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