Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Thursday retracted a statement saying that four indigenous children missing for more than two weeks after an airplane crash in the Amazon had been found alive.
He had deleted his Wednesday night tweet in which he had announced the rescue of the four children, including an 11-month-old baby, Petro wrote on Twitter.
“I am sorry for what happened. The military forces and indigenous communities will continue in their tireless search to give the country the news it is waiting for,” he said.
Photo: AFP
More than 100 soldiers have been deployed with sniffer dogs to search for the minors who were traveling in an airplane that crashed on May 1, leaving three adults including the pilot and the children’s mother dead.
Rescuers believe the children — who in addition to the 11-month-old include a 13, nine and four-year-old — have been wandering through the jungle in the southern Caqueta Department since the crash.
“At this time, there is no other priority other than progressing with the search until finding them,” Petro said. “The children’s lives are the most important thing.”
Petro’s announcement on Wednesday had been met with uncertainty, as he gave no details about where or how the children had been rescued, nor how they had survived alone in the jungle.
“Joy for the country,” he had written.
Amid widespread confusion, the military has not commented since Petro’s announcement on Wednesday.
The children’s grandmother, Fidencio Valencia, said that there was hope that they would be found alive, as “they are used to being in the jungle.”
She said they might be hiding out of fear, but she said that “indigenous energy” would help the rescuers locate them.
The Colombian Institute of Family Welfare said that it had on Wednesday received “information from the territory confirming contact with the four children.”
It said that the report indicated that “they had been found alive and are also in good health.”
However, the agency said that the military had not been able to “establish official contact” due to bad weather and difficult terrain, and were continuing search and rescue operations.
Avianline Charters, owner of the crashed aircraft, had previously said that one of its pilots in the search area was told that the children had been found and that they were being taken by boat downriver.
In photographs released by the military, scissors, shoes and hair ties could be seen among branches on the jungle floor.
A baby’s drinking bottle and half-eaten pieces of fruit had been spotted before the shelter’s discovery.
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