All means are good to find the four children who disappeared in the Colombian jungle, safe and sound, after the crash of their plane which occurred 22 days ago. A hundred survival kits and 10,000 leaflets were dropped and disseminated this weekend from helicopters through the dense forest of the Amazon, around San José del Guaviare, in the department of Caquetà in the south of the country.
In detail, the leaflets have been written in Spanish and indigenous languages and indicate how to contact the emergency services, while the survival kits contain food and water.
A search area of approximately 323 square kilometers
More than 160 soldiers are engaged in the search to try to find the children aged thirteen, nine, four and an eleven month old baby. The Colombian President Gustavo Petro had announced, last Wednesday on Twitter, the rescue of these four children before retracting the next day, indicating that the search was continuing.
Military forces believe they could roam an area of about 323 square kilometers, or 80% of the area of Bogota, a city of eight million people. Ionshore research found a footprint, belongings including a bottle, as well as a makeshift shelter and nibbled fruit.
The Cessna 206 in which they were traveling had disappeared from radar on May 1 in the vicinity of San José del Guaviare, in the department of Caquetà (south). He was found on May 15 with his nose crushed to the ground. Three bodies were recovered by the rescue services, those of the children’s mother, the pilot and a leader of the Uitoto indigenous community, to which the pengers belonged. They were the only adults on board the small plane.
Other means are implemented to find missing children.
The military forces rely in particular on satellite images to determine the path that the children could have taken in the jungle. A group of aborigines drawn from seven indigenous peoples from across the country, accustomed to the jungle, are also taking part in the search. They “carry out spiritual processes of talking to the jungle and asking it to talk” and helping them locate the children, the Colombian military said.