Four Brothers Survive Six Weeks in the Colombian Jungle After a Plane Crash

The Journey and the Crash

The children were traveling with their mother, a friend, and the pilot of the small Cessna that was transporting them on May 1, 2023. They had left Araracuara, a village in the heart of the Colombian Amazon where the indigenous Huitoto people live, to join their father in the city of San José del Guaviare. Their father, Manuel Ranoque, explained that the family was fleeing their native village due to threats from armed groups taking control of Araracuara and the surrounding areas and threatening the residents.

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Surviving in the Jungle

In the initial days, the four brothers survived on cassava or manioc flour, a type of starch obtained from the roots of the cassava plant (Manihot esculenta), a South American native plant, high in calories and sweet in taste, typically used by Amazonian populations to make bread and cakes. They later ate seeds, especially from a fruit called avichure, similar to passion fruit, which they found about a mile and a half from the crash site, as well as other fruits and aromatic herbs.

“Indigenous people grow up in close communion with their environment,” explains Luis Germán Naranjo, director of conservation at WWF Colombia to Focus.it. “Children learn from their elders what is edible, how to find shelter during a storm, how to find potable water, and how to avoid dangerous creatures. Above all, they feel in communion with nature and see the forest as their home.”

The Importance of Indigenous Culture

Huitoto children start fishing, hunting, and gathering fruits from a young age, and by 13 (and even 9), a child raised in this context can easily navigate the forest and can travel up to 30 km per day without shoes: the children were found with rags tied to their feet to protect their skin while they walked through the underbrush.

The Rescue

One hundred and fifty Colombian army soldiers were mobilized along with a dozen dogs specialized in rescue missions, while helicopters flew over an area of more than 323 square kilometers, broadcasting a message recorded by the children’s grandmother in the Huitoto language, telling them they were being searched for and to stay together. One of the dogs, a Belgian shepherd named Wilson, managed to find the children and escort them for several days before they were found by the men.

An Extraordinary Tale of Survival

The children were eventually rescued 5 km from the crash site, in a small clearing within the forest. After an initial evacuation to San José del Guaviare, the brothers were transported by a military medical plane to Bogotá for two weeks of specialized care in the hospital, a bit worse for wear but alive. They were saved by an ancient and precious culture that the uncontrolled exploitation of the forest by those who see it only as resources to extract would seek to erase.