‘I am your grandmother Fatima. They must be quiet”: the moving message used in the search for the 4 missing children in the Colombian jungle

“In the jungle there are voices and those voices are heard.”

With this premise in mind, Colombian emergency services are conducting one of the largest searches recently undertaken in the country: that of four children believed to have survived a May 1 plane crash in the Guaviare region.

The four children – brothers aged 4, 9 and 13, and one aged 11 months – were accompanied on the journey by their mother and two other adults, who died as a result of the accident.

However, when authorities arrived at the scene of the accident, they found only the lifeless bodies of the adults. There was no trace of the children.

The event became a national one when Colombia’s president himself, Gustavo Petro, announced on social networks that the children had been found alive.

None of the authorities involved in the search could confirm the news, which Petro himself had to deny a day later.

“The army has been there since day one, since the plane was lost and since we found out the children might still be alive. We have used all possible means to find them,” Captain Carlos G. Vargas, a member of the Colombian army communications team, told BBC Mundo.

Recorded message

Of the strategies used by Colombian authorities to find the minors, one has caught the eye: a message recorded by Fátima, the children’s grandmother, in both Spanish and her mother tongue.

“I ask you a favor, that I am your grandmother Fatima, you understand me. They must be quiet. They’re looking for you. Listen to the mic, stand still so they can take you. If they feel sad, only my God knows,” the message reads.

This recording has been used by helicopters flying over the area as well as by soldiers who have used loudspeaker systems to spread the message throughout the jungle.

The plane crashed while traveling the Araracuara – San José del Guaviare route with seven people on board, including the pilot. Among the fatalities was Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia, the mother of the minors.

“I lost my daughter, who will never call me mom again, so all I want is to hug my grandchildren so they can find them,” Fátima told the news portal France 24.

unpublished search

The search for the children has enabled unprecedented collaboration between the government, indigenous communities and the national army.

In addition to the 150 uniformed officers who are in the area, 100 members of indigenous communities joined forces this weekend to find the four minors.

It’s not an easy challenge: the search area covers about 26,000 kilometers of dense jungle in the south of the country, which has slowed the advance of troops on the ground.

“We have launched survival packs. We have organized a logistical support network in an unprecedented search in the country, where everyone works together: indigenous communities, national government agencies and armed forces, to find the children alive,” the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare told BBC Mundo (ICBF), entity that coordinates the search for children.

However, since last Friday, when a footprint was found, no traces of the minors have been found.

Relatives and Indigenous who live in the area rely on the children’s abilities to survive in the middle of the jungle.

“Children live for us. Mother Nature is a living being, she is a being that has her people in there. What we analyzed from our organization is that the jungle absorbed them on principle. We can believe that Mother Nature has them, but she feeds them herself to survive this situation,” Miguel Romario, a member of the Jirijiri Indigenous Reserve in Putumayo, told local media.

This Tuesday, President Petro again referred to the situation of minors and the confusion with his posts on social networks, pointing out that it was a miscommunication with the ICBF.