Colombian authorities were believed to have found three children and a baby alive 17 days after their plane crashed in the jungle in the south of the country.
President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday evening said: “After arduous search efforts by our Military Forces, we have found alive the 4 children who had disappeared due to the plane crash in Guaviare. A joy for the country”.
Petro did not provide any details on where the children had been rescued or how they survived alone in the jungle for 17 days.
Rescuers believed the children, 13, nine, four, and the baby, have been wandering through the jungle in the southern Caqueta department, Colombia since the crash.
On Wednesday morning, they found an improvised shelter built with sticks and branches in the jungle leading them to believe there were survivors.
The Colombian government deployed more than 100 soldiers, sniffer dogs and local indigenous people to find the children on board a Cessna C206 light aircraft when it crashed in the Amazon in the southern Caqueta Department on May 1. The three adults on board died in the crash.
