Documentary to be made about 4 children who survived 40 days in Amazon
3 Min Read
The four children — Lesly, (13) Soleiny, (9) Tien Noriel, (4) and Cristin, (1) — were rescued in an operation that combed through more than 1,600 miles of dense forest.
-
Members of the Colombian army check one of the four Indigenous children on June 9, 2023. (Colombian Air Force / AFP)
The Colombian government is joining forces with British producer Simon Chinn to make a documentary about the four Indigenous children who survived 40 days alone in the Amazon after a plane crash that killed their mother, the country's president announced on Friday.
Gustavo Petro, who is attending a climate summit in Paris, said he had "a first meeting" with Chinn, a two-time Oscar winner for the documentaries "Man on Wire" (2008) and "Searching for Sugar Man" (2012).
The four children -- Lesly (13), Soleiny (9), Tien Noriel (5), and one-year-old Cristin -- were the only survivors of a small plane crash in the Amazon on May 1.
All three adults on board, including their mother, died. The mother of the kids, Magdalena Mucutuy, was a prominent Indigenous figure.
Uitoto Indigenous children were located alive by rescuers after spending 40 days lost in the Amazon rainforest following the crash of a small Cessna 206 plane on which they were traveling with their mother, the pilot, and a relative.
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.
On Thursday, Petro shared a photo of him with Chinn, Guillermo Galdos, a journalist for British television's Channel 4, and Hollman Morris, the head of television for Colombia's national broadcaster RTVC.
In further details, Petro said RTVC will partner with Lightbox, a production company founded by Chinn, to tell the story of "Operation Hope," the name for the massive search operation. "We have to talk with the family, with the Indigenous communities (and) open the archive of images," Petro told reporters.
After some of the kids' possessions were found near the plane, a search including elite military commandos and indigenous spiritual leaders was launched. On June 9, the search team was eventually directed to a location in the bush where the kids were sheltering.
They were underweight, dehydrated, and living in a temporary shelter. Wild fruits and Lesly's inventive use of a soda bottle to gather water to drink helped them stay alive.
A military hospital in Bogota reported that the kids are healing successfully, "with improvement... in appetite, weight gain, and adequate tolerance to food intake," as per the facility.
