How children survived 40 days lost in the Amazon

It’s most people’s nightmare: surviving a plane crash only to be stranded in a jungle with no way of contacting the outside world. But this was reality for four Colombian children, and in an incredible story of resilience, they survived.

The children, aged 13, nine and four, as well as an 11-month-old baby, were flying with their mother from their village in the Amazon to visit their father in San José del Guaviare. The single-engine Cessna on which they were flying experienced engine problems and disappeared on May 1, 2023.

Bad weather prevented the army from finding the crash site for two weeks, where they then found the dead bodies of three adults, including the children’s mother.

How did these children survive conditions that would be an unimaginable struggle for most adults? They are members of the Huitoto Indigenous group and were raised in the jungle. As such, they have an intimate understanding of the rainforest. They know which fruits are safe to eat and which plants should be avoided.

Working with, rather than against, the Amazon, they survived off of juan soco (a fruit similar to passion fruit) and seeds, while feeding the baby water mixed with yucca flour that they found on the plane.

While the children got on with the business of surviving, the Colombian army worked with Indigenous volunteers to find them.

After 40 days of searching, the children were found and taken to recover at a military hospital in Bogota.

While many around the world have taken this survival story to be a miracle, others point out that it is the result of an ancient and intimate knowledge of the rainforest that has been passed down through Indigenous communities over the generations. 

Indigenous tribes have a close relationship to the Amazon, marked by a deep respect for the forest that provides them with shelter and sustenance. It is their close connection to and understanding of the rainforest that undoubtedly helped the children to survive.