Bogota, Colombia
Reuters
Four Indigenous children who were missing for more than five weeks in Colombia’s southern jungle will tell their own story about the ordeal, the father of the two youngest siblings said on Sunday.
The children, aged one through 13, survived a 1st May plane crash that killed their mother and two other adults and were found on Friday in Caqueta province after weeks of searching by the military and Indigenous communities.
Manuel Ranoque, father of the child survivors of a Cessna 206 plane, that crashed in thick jungle, speaks to the media, near the central military hospital, where the children are hospitalised, Bogota, Colombia, on 11th June, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Herbert Villarraga
Their ordeal began in the early hours, when the Cessna 206 aircraft carrying seven people and traveling between Araracuara airport in Caqueta and San Jose del Guaviare, a city in Guaviare province, issued a mayday alert due to engine failure.
“They will tell their stories and you will hear them,” said Manuel Ranoque, the father of the one-year-old and five-year-old siblings, after visiting them at Bogota’s military hospital.
“It’s not easy to ask them because the children went 40 days without eating well, so I have not been able to get information from the oldest child,” Ranoque told reporters.
Ranoque also told reporters the children’s mother had survived for four days after the crash, an account disputed by another family member who also spoke to journalists. Reuters was not able to independently verify the information.
