Children reunited with family after surviving 40 days in Amazon

Four children who survived weeks unsocial successful Colombia's Amazon jungle person been reunited with relatives and person begun playing again, officials say.

The siblings, aged 13, nine, 5 and one, are recuperating successful infirmary successful Bogota, the capital.

They are "very weak" but "happy to spot their family", said their grandfather, Fidencio Valencia.

The 4 children were recovered aft much than a period of searching by the subject and section people.

They went missing aft the level they were successful crashed connected 1 May. Their parent and 2 pilots were killed successful the crash.

Rescuers tracked them down aft spotting signs successful the jungle, including footprints and effect that had been bitten into.

Two of the children, the one-year-old babe and five-year-old, spent their birthdays successful the jungle, arsenic the eldest Lesly, 13, guided them done the ordeal.

Colombia's Defence Minister Ivan Velasquez, who visited them successful the infirmary with President Gustavo Petro connected Saturday, praised Lesly for taking attraction of her younger siblings.

"It is acknowledgment to her, her worth and her leadership, that the 3 others were capable to survive, with her care, her cognition of the jungle," Mr Velasquez said.

"In wide the children, the lad and the girls are successful an acceptable state, according to the aesculapian reports they are retired of danger."

Military doc Carlos Rincon said they person "nutritional deficiencies" but had survived with lone "some brushed insubstantial injuries, bites, and tegument lesions".

They are not yet capable to eat, helium said, adding: "We volition statesman the process of incorporating nutrient erstwhile we implicit the process of objective examinations that volition beryllium done today. If things spell well, we judge they volition enactment successful the infirmary for 2 to 3 weeks."

Astrid Caceres, the wide manager of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, said the children "don't speech arsenic overmuch arsenic we would similar them to" and request clip to recover.

But she said 2 of the children had been playing.

The children beryllium to the Huitoto indigenous group. General Pedro Sanchez, who led the hunt operation, credited Indigenous radical who volunteered to assistance the rescue effort.

"We recovered the children: miracle, miracle, miracle!" helium told reporters.

The children's grandmother, Fatima Valencia, said aft their rescue: "I americium precise grateful, and to parent world arsenic well, that they were acceptable free."

She said the eldest of the 4 siblings was utilized to looking aft the different 3 erstwhile their parent was astatine work, and that this helped them past successful the jungle.

"She gave them flour and cassava bread, immoderate effect successful the bush, they cognize what they indispensable consume," Ms Valencia said successful footage obtained by EVN.

The Cessna 206 craft the children and their parent had been travelling connected earlier the clang was flying from Araracuara, successful Amazonas province, to San José del Guaviare, erstwhile it issued a mayday alert owed to motor failure.

The bodies of the 3 adults were recovered astatine the clang tract by the army, but it appeared that the children had escaped the wreckage and wandered into the rainforest to find help.

In May, rescuers recovered items near down by the children, including a child's drinking bottle, a brace of scissors, a hairsbreadth necktie and a makeshift shelter.

Small footprints were besides discovered, which led hunt teams to judge the children were inactive live successful the rainforest, which is location to jaguars, snakes and different predators.

Members of the children's assemblage hoped that their cognition of fruits and jungle endurance skills would springiness them a amended accidental of remaining alive.

Indigenous radical joined the hunt and helicopters broadcast a connection from the children's grandmother, recorded successful the Huitoto language, urging them to halt moving to marque them easier to locate.