«I ask you a favor, that I am your grandmother Fatima, you understand me. They have to be still. They are looking for you. Listen to the microphone, be standing, for them to bring you. If they feel distressed, only my God knows.” This is the message that the Colombian air force broadcasts at all hours from the air over the jungle where the four lost brothers have been since the 1st day when the plane in which they were traveling with their mother plummeted into the leafy region of Caqueta.
The search becomes more and more anguishing by the hour. She has been joined by the children’s father, Manuel Ranoque Morales, and 85 new soldiers to whom their colonel has issued a single order: “Bring the children alive.” Three army planes, in a desperate attempt to increase the chances of a happy outcome, have dropped hundreds of survival kits into the thicket with water and IV. They hope that the minors will find them and can be nourished with other supplements apart from the fruit that they have been collecting and that has allowed them to stay alive during these almost three weeks of erratic journey.
The anguish grows among Colombians at the same speed as the mystery. How three children aged 13, 9 and 4 who take care of an eleven-month-old baby have survived in the jungle for so long is unknown. All this enormous reaction capacity is attributed by the rescuers to the very nature of the little ones, used to defending themselves and living with the jungle. They originate from a small ethnic group that lives in the foothills of the Claquetá forest and, therefore, they know it well. They know which fruits are edible and which snakes, insects and other animals are worse to fear. Those close to them add that they are used to being threatened. Like other families in their community, they have been frequently harassed by criminal gangs hidden in the bush. But in reality no one knows its current state. It has not even been possible to determine if any of them, or all, suffered injuries as a result of the accident.
The small Cessna registered an engine failure just after dawn over the region, shortly after taking off from Araracuara with its passengers. It plunged into the tops of some trees and later fell vertically to the ground. The impact was tremendous. The remains of the aircraft show the nose completely crushed.
Inside, the soldiers found the body of the pilot, Hernando Murcia. The previous day he had made five flights without any problem. Before leaving, he had called his wife, as he always did, to explain the flight plan and the time of arrival at his destination.
A short distance from the wreckage of his Cessna, the bodies of the children’s mother and the last occupant of the aircraft, the director of an indigenous foundation that was heading to the region’s capital, appeared. It has not been revealed if both victims were thrown from the plane or managed to leave it and died shortly after due to the seriousness of the injuries. Perhaps the little ones were behind, at the back of the cabin, and that allowed them to escape unharmed. Nobody knows. It seems to offer a glimmer of hope that no trace of blood has been found. The rescuers have not reported, at least, indications that show the possibility of injuries to any of the minors.
The Guaviare jungle has become the center of all eyes in Colombia and millions of people around the planet. It is the scene of one of the most colossal rescue missions carried out in this country. Eight years ago, a young mother and her baby also suffered a plane crash, the most common way to cross the Amazon besides the boats that ply the rivers, but they were found after five days. The feat of the four little ones is unprecedented.
piranhas and whirlpools
The Colombian army’s survival manual describes the jungle as a “vast expanse of difficult access, adverse conditions and unhealthy climate.” “It offers severe conditions, constant dangers, and a myriad of circumstances that can lead a person to death, but at the same time it offers hundreds of opportunities for life, and adverse circumstances can be used to gain advantage over the adversary, should they have it, or on the manigua (swampy place full of vegetation) to be able to get out of it alive ».
The two hundred soldiers participating in the device cling to this last appreciation to preserve hope. Among them there are quite a few expert soldiers in the jungle as a result of search missions for guerrilla groups or gangs dedicated to crime and drug trafficking. They track day and night in the company of dozens of Civil Defense first responders and other rescue organizations using night vision goggles and heat detectors. The conditions are dire. When darkness falls they try to take advantage of the fact that the children are surely sleeping and therefore remain still. Become a stationary target, not a needle constantly slipping into a haystack.
The operation focuses on the surroundings of the Apaporis River, whose course they believe the minors are following in search of a population. The area is littered with dangers. There are numerous swamps, mud, and streams. “Before entering a river, observe its shape to discover if it is calm or hides currents and eddies,” warns the military manual. «Piranhas are found anywhere in the jungle where there is a backwater of a river. They are generally found in calm waters. The Government has also reported the persistence of downpours and electrical storms in the region. Another huge risk. A lightning strike in the middle of the humid jungle can electrocute a person in a radius of six hundred meters.
The other possibility that the experts are considering is that the brothers, after running into some indigenous people, have been transferred to a safe settlement or travel to a town along trails and rivers that, practically, only the natives know about. But it is a minority theory. In the last four days, rescuers have only found clues to the transit of children, who have been leaving remains of fruit, clothes, hair scrunchies, a bottle and even children’s scissors on the road. “Fresh footprints” of children’s footprints have also been located next to a stream. None as an adult. “The best hope of a man surviving a plane crash, lost in the jungle, is to find help and the most likely is that of an indigenous or native of the region who helps him return to a populated place,” the military explained.
the owner of the jungle
Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest children, Tien Noriel (4 years old) and Cristin Neriman (11 months), and stepfather of the two older sisters, Lesly (13 years old) and Soleiny (9) have joined the search for. The place is huge. The tracking area covers almost 26,000 square kilometers, more or less the same extension as the metropolitan area of Bogotá, but with dense jungle. The army believes that the little ones are constantly on the move in search of food, but Manuel is convinced that they have been picked up by a native. Manuel had decided to move his family to San José, the capital of Guanaive, and from there to travel to Bogotá, where he had found a job, after being forced to flee the Caquetá region due to threats from the guerrillas.
Grandma Fátima, the author of the airmail messages to her grandchildren, just waits to see them walk through the door of her house unharmed. She has already been informed of the death of her daughter, Magdalena Mucutuy. Like her, she is also indigenous and her supernatural beliefs have gained strength as the hours go by. “Our knowledge tells us that we must look for them at night, because we believe that the goblin has them, who appears as mom, dad or uncle,” she told a Colombian outlet, convinced that “someone is carrying them” and that is why their footprints they vanish in the jungle.
Another close friend of the family, Fidencio Valencia, assures that “we are looking for help everywhere before it is too late.” To the “spiritual support of the grandparents of the territories” located in the course of the Apaporis River is added that of the indigenous ethnic groups that “live in the sector, such as the Tucanos, Tikunas and Makunas. The goal is for the god and the owner of the jungle to help us deliver the children,” exclaims Valencia.
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