Almost a month after the plane crash that killed three adults and four children went missing, Colombian authorities believe they are still alive and are urging them to be searched for.

General Pedro Sánchez, after meeting with civil aviation officials and the Colombian State Institute for Family Welfare, explained that the evidence leads them to this conclusion.

“We conclude that the children are alive based on the evidence. If they were dead it would certainly be easy to find them because they would be quiet, because the animals would lead us there,” he told W Radio.

They are looking for children aged 13, 9 and 4, as well as an 11-month-old baby who disappeared on May 1 in the jungle in the southeast of the country.

‘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

Authorities are tracking the minors along the banks of the mighty Apaporis River in an area of ​​some 323 square kilometers, the equivalent of the entire province of Buenos Aires.

“It’s still very strange because they don’t stop, even though we’ve put in more than 10,000 flyers and 100 survival kits,” added the general in charge of nearly 200 men, including indigenous and military, passing through this border area between the travel departments. from Caquetá and Guaviare (south).

On May 24, two diapers and a pair of slippers were found. “We found evidence and we confirmed with the GPS, when we found the two diapers, used one, that we were about 100 meters from them,” said Sánchez.

“At one point we had 92 indigenous people working with our commandos, there are 73 left due to the same terrain conditions, but this combination has allowed us to double our eyes in the area, also to share knowledge about the complex and mysterious, what some call our jungle,” the soldier added.

Diapers and shoes among new traces of the four children who disappeared more than 20 days ago after a plane crash in Colombia

The search is conducted with reflectors and loudspeakers that display a message spoken by the children’s grandmother in their mother tongue and in Spanish.

Meanwhile, the indigenous communities are conducting “spiritual processes that consist of speaking to the jungle and asking it to speak” to locate the minors, the government said.

Fidencio Valencia, the grandfather of the children, is faithful to the faith of the Amazon peoples AFP that a supernatural and “mysterious” force prevented the rescue.

With 150 men, Colombia is looking for four minors in the jungle

Jaguars, cougars, snakes and other predators inhabit the area. There are also guerrilla fighters who have deviated from the peace pact signed by the FARC in 2016.

However, General Sánchez assured that the brothers “definitely do not belong to an armed group”.