The Cessna 206 aircraft belonging to Avianline Charter company that crashed in Colombia’s Guaviare jungle took off from Araracuara on May 1, 2023 towards San José del Guaviare.

Magdalena Mucutuy was on the plane with her four children and two other adults. The elderly died and the children of the indigenous woman are the protagonists of the “miracle of Guaviare” as they were found alive 40 days after the aerial tragedy.

It is known that Operation Hope, deployed by the Colombian government and in which the army, rescuers and indigenous people participated, penetrated the jungle and flew over it until it gave the key that the army and all of Colombia were waiting for.

For every child found alive, it would be reported with the word “miracle.” On the afternoon of Friday, June 9, they spoke it not once, but four times.

“Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle!” the uniformed men shouted when they found the minors, Cambio Colombia reported.

“Save yourself and your brothers”: the alleged plea of ​​the mother of the 4 children rescued in the jungle of Colombia, which the maternal grandfather denied

Why did indigenous children go to Guaviare?

Little will be known about what happened in those 40 days. Interesting facts are already known, but the joy for the triumph of life in the dense and dangerous jungle is undeniable.

What few can handle is perhaps why Magdalena boarded the -last- flight of that plane.

The woman and her children, Lesly, Soleiny, Tien, Lesly and Cristín, were traveling, BBC Mundo reported, “to meet the children’s father, Manuel Ranoque, an indigenous leader who had fled Araracuara as a result of the threats he received from illegal armed groups.”

The AFP bureau also released this version: The minors boarded a plane with their mother on May 1 to flee from the dissidents of the peace agreement between the FARC and the government, who recruit and intimidate the inhabitants of the area, said General Pedro Sánchez, in charge of the rescue operation.

On Sunday, June 11, two days after the location of the Mucutuy brothers, Manuel Ranoque, father of the two young children and stepfather of the older one, stated that he was threatened by the guerrillas.

“I am going to live in Bogotá full time because I have problems and difficulties with the Carolina Ramírez Front looking for me,” he said, according to EFE.

He confirmed that he is “a target” for that front “because he knows all that area of ​​the Colombian Amazon, one of the reasons he wanted to get his wife, Magdalena Mucutuy, out of there.”

The Mucutuy respond

“I didn’t know they were going to leave on a plane,” says Fátima Valencia, the children’s grandmother. This woman and Fidencio Valencia pointed out that Ranoque is lying: “The FARC did not take him from there, it is a lie, he also went to rape the girl,” Caracol Radio published.

Taken from Twitter Caracol Radio

The Valencias believe that Ranoque “brainwashed” his wife. And they charged, “He assaulted Magdalena when she smoked marijuana.”

My daughter didn’t talk to me or her brothers

Fatima Valencia about Magdalena, the mother of the children

5 keys to saving children in Guaviare

The children were found five kilometers from the place where the plane crashed in early May last year.

Keys:

1. Lesly, the heroine

The decisive role of Lesly, the 13-year-old girl, is not in question.

“It is thanks to her (Lesly), her courage and her leadership that the other three were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle,” said Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez.

According to Henry Guerrero, a rescuer from the Indigenous team that participated in the search, Lesly played a fundamental role in protecting her brothers.

“The eldest was very intelligent, I realized when we checked what she had brought in her suitcase since they left the plane,” she explained. The girl brought with her fariña (cassava flour), a towel, a flashlight with dead batteries, two mobile phones “which I think they were used to distract them at night”, a music box, a bottle of soda and clothes, according to the story AFP office.

2. They ate fruit

Knowing the jungle, when the flour ran out, Lesly and her brothers “eat chontaduro and wild mango (…) their own fruits from the jungle,” General Sánchez reported.

Indigenous children know the jungle very well. They know what to eat and what not to eat.

3. They were in a tent, a “cambuche”

The AFP pointed out that in that area where it can rain for up to 16 hours a day, the Mucutuy “had a little cambuchito (makeshift tent), with an awning, and they had a washcloth on the ground there.”

4. They had water

According to Henry Guerrero, “The children always stayed near a watercourse.

A bottle of soda loaded into the trunk at the right time by Lesly allowed them to stock up on water during the odyssey.

5. Wilson the dog

According to the military, Wilson found baby Cristin’s bottle among the thick vegetation and nearly 4 kilometers from the scene of the accident.

Several clues indicate that the dog may have been the first to find the children, as the animal’s footprints seem to indicate along with those of the minors, the military points out.

Lesly “told us (…) about the lost puppy, that they don’t know where he was and that he accompanied them for a while,” an official from the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare confirmed.

The joy for this rescue will be greater when they find the Belgian Sheepdog. The army is looking for him and those following this case continue to pray as requested by the children’s grandmother, Fatima. The woman did not lose confidence and the press from the neighboring country told that she asked Mother Earth to ‘release’ her grandchildren. And the miracle had happened.