Survivors: Four children found alive in Colombian jungle weeks after plane crash

Four children were found alive two weeks after they were in a plane that crashed in the thick Colombian jungle in the southern area of the country, President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday. 

"After arduous searching by our military, we have found alive the four children who went missing after a plane crash in Guaviare. A joy for the country," Petro said in a message via Twitter.

The children, aged 13, 8, 4, and 11-month-old baby, from the Huitoto indigenous community, were rescued in the jungle area of Caqueta province by military, firefighters, and civil aviation authorities. 

The kids were part of an airplane crash that was traveling between Aracuara in the Amazons and San Jose del Guaviare, in Guaviare province on May 1. The Cessna 206 issued an alert after it experienced an engine failure. The plane was found with its nose buried in the jungle floor. The cause of the plane crash is still being investigated.

There were a total of seven people on board the plane at the time of the crash. Three adults, including the pilot, died from the impact of the crash. Their bodies were found inside the plane earlier this week. 

According to a preliminary investigation by the civil aviation authority, the children are thought to have survived the crash and wandered into the jungle in search of help. 

Authorities began a search for the children throughout the jungle, even with the help of airplanes and helicopters from the country’s military. Eventually, search dogs found discarded fruit and makeshift shelters of sticks and branches that the children had left behind as they continued to move forward. 

The conditions within the rainforest and its extreme isolation made it hard for the more than 100 soldiers that were participating in the search to move through the thick jungle. A military helicopter was sent to play a recorded message from the children’s grandmother to tell the children to stop moving throughout the forest.