Children who survived five weeks in Colombia jungle will tell own story: father

[June 12, 2023]  BOGOTA (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 1 through 13, survived a May 1 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.

Soldiers of the Colombian Air Force and employees of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) give medical attention inside a plane to the surviving children of a Cessna 206 plane crash in the thick jungle, while they are transferred to Bogota by air in San Jose del Guaviare, Colombia, June 9, 2023. Colombian Air Force/Handout via REUTERS

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 1-year-old and 5-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.

(Reporting by Herbert Villarraga and Liamar Ramos; Writing by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Diane Craft)

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