Colombian kids' mom stayed alive for four days after jungle crash
According to the husband, the mother of the four Indigenous children who were found alive 40 days after being lost in the Colombian jungle died after remaining alive for four days.
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Manuel Ranoque, the father of the four children who were rescued, stands on the tarmac as his kids are being taken into ambulances upon landing on the CATAM military base in Bogota on Saturday (AFP)
The mother of the four Indigenous children who were found after spending 40 days lost in the Colombian jungle only managed to stay alive for four days before passing away as a result of the injuries sustained in the plane crash on May 1, according to her widow.
Uitoto Indigenous children, aged ages 13, nine, five, and one, were located alive on Friday by rescuers after spending several days lost in the Amazon rainforest after the crash of a small Cessna 206 plane on which they were traveling with their mother, the pilot, and a relative.
All three of the adults who were involved in the collision died, although Manuel Miller Ranoque said his injured wife survived momentarily, while their young children were with her.
"The one thing that (13-year-old Lesly) has cleared up for me is that, in fact, her mother was alive for four days," Ranoque told reporters in front of the military hospital in Bogota where the kids are receiving medical attention.
"Before she died, their mom told them something like, 'You guys get out of here. You guys are going to see the kind of man your dad is, and he's going to show you the same kind of great love that I have shown you.'"
The mother of the kids, Magdalena Mucutuy, was a prominent Indigenous figure.
The fact that the youths were eventually discovered alive, despite the dangers posed by jaguars and snakes and the persistent downpours that may have prevented them from hearing potential calls from search parties, is in large part due to the local knowledge of the children and Indigenous adults involved in the search alongside Colombian troops.
"The survival of the children is a sign of the knowledge and relationship with the natural environment that is taught starting in the mother's womb," the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Colombia said.
According to Luis Acosta of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, they also consumed foods that they had learned to recognize as edible from their childhood in the Amazon region, such as seeds, fruits, roots, and plants.
