The first words spoken by four Colombian children after surviving 40 days in the Amazon jungle have been revealed by rescue teams as the children recover in a military hospital in Bogota.
When a search team found the children weakened by malnutrition on Friday, the first thing four-year-old Tien Noriel Ranoque Mucutuy said was: "My mom is dead."
Hundreds of soldiers and an alliance of indigenous communities searched for the missing children for more than a month after their plane crashed in the jungle on May 1, leaving the children alone in the rainforest.
The children were found shoeless, weak from malnutrition and too tired to walk.
The first words from Lesly Mucutuy, the eldest child - who is believed to have kept her siblings alive - were: "I'm hungry".
More details have been revealed about how Lesly used the knowledge handed down to her by the elders of the indigenous Huitoto community to guide her younger siblings to survival – despite torrential downpours, food shortages and dangerous animals in jungle.
It also turned out that Lesly pulled the youngest child, Cristin, from the plane after the crash, according to grandfather Narciso Mucutuy. "She saw her younger sister's legs where there were three dead and pulled her out," Mucutuy said.
Lesly told her family from the hospital room that the mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, had survived for four days after the plane crash, but eventually told her children to leave her behind, asking the older child to look after the brothers her sisters.
The lessons she learned from the indigenous tribe helped the 13-year-old take refuge in the forest and distinguish between safe and nutritious fruits and poisonous ones.
The children ate Couma macrocarpa , a creamy white fruit, and Oenocarpus bacaba , small fruits that resemble plums, the family said. The children also reportedly found one of the 100 aid packages dropped by the army in the jungle.
Fëmijët – të privuar nga gjumi dhe të tmerruar nga kërcënimet e panumërta në xhunglën e dominuar nga rebelët – u larguan kur dëgjonin zërat e ekipeve të shpëtimit sepse ishin të frikësuar se mos ishin grupe të armatosura.
Babai i fëmijëve, Manuel Ranoque, i tha radios W në Bogota se fëmijët mbijetuan falë njohurive që u transmetuan nga prindërit e tyre, të cilët i kishin gjithmonë fëmijët pranë kur punonin dhe i mësonin të hanin kafshë të egra.
Fëmijët tani gjenden në spital dhe po shërohen. Disa vizatime të tyre u shpërndanë të hënën. Midis ilustrimeve të bëra nga ata në spital ishte një që tregonte Wilson, një nga disa qen të ekipeve të shpëtimit që ndihmoi në gjetjen e fëmijëve, por ai vetë humbi në xhungël dhe mbetet i zhdukur.
