President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday that four Indigenous children who had been missing for more than two weeks following a plane crash in Colombia's Amazon had been discovered alive, pronouncing "joy for the country."
According to Petro's tweet, the youngsters were recovered after "arduous search efforts" by the military.
Authorities had deployed over 100 soldiers accompanied by sniffer dogs to seek the youngsters aboard a flight that crashed in the Amazon on May 1, killing three adults.
The four youngsters, ages 13, 9, 4, and an 11-month-old baby are believed to have been wandering through the jungle in the southern Caqueta region since the crash.
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Earlier Wednesday, the armed forces claimed that search efforts had been stepped up after rescuers discovered a "shelter built in an improvised way with sticks and branches," prompting them to suspect there were survivors.
Scissors and a hair tie were seen among the trees on the jungle floor in images published by the military forces.
A baby's drinking bottle and a half-eaten piece of fruit had already been discovered.
On Monday and Tuesday, soldiers discovered the pilot's bodies and two adults flying from a jungle area to San Jose del Guaviare, one of Colombia's most significant cities in the Amazon rainforest.
Ranoque Mucutuy, one of the deceased passengers, was the mother of the four Huitoto ethnic children.
The search for "Operation Hope" was hampered by giant trees that can grow to be 40 meters tall, wild animals, and heavy rain.
Three helicopters were employed to assist, one of which broadcast a recorded message from the children's grandmother in Huitoto instructing them to stop going through the jungle.
Authorities have not revealed the cause of the jet accident.
According to Colombia's disaster response agency, the pilot reported engine problems just minutes before the plane vanished from radars.
It is a remote region with few roads and poor river access. Therefore, air travel is prevalent.
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