The miracle of the four children found alive in the Colombian jungle after 40 days missing after suffering a plane crash is on everyone’s lips. A miracle. A true miracle. But how have these little ones been able to survive in a hostile environment for more than a month? Beyond the details becoming known, there is one name that stands out above the rest: Lesly Jacobo Bonbaire, the eldest of the four siblings who, at only 13 years old, has been in charge of caring for the rest, Solecni, nine years old; Tien Noriel, four, and Cristin Neryman, only one.
“She always took care of them when the mother worked. She gave them fariñita, casabito (flour and cassava bread), any fruit in the bush ”Fátima Valencia, the mother of Magdalena Mucutuy, who died when the plane in which she was traveling with her children crashed on May 1 in the thick of the Colombian Amazon has assured the AFP agency.
In fact, maybe The hardest decision Lesly had to make was to leave her mother’s body behind, the pilot Hernando Murcia and Herman Mendoza, the other crew member, who were traveling in the crashed plane. To save the little ones it was necessary to remove them from the harsh panorama of death and continue walking through the jungle in search of help and a way to survive, because there standing next to the remains of the apparatus and the corpses were doomed.
That’s how they found enough food to feed themselves, but they didn’t just need food. That’s why Lesly pulled on the stripes that being the older sister gave her and was making the decisions: when to walk, when to camp and sleep, when to stop to take care of the baby, who was 11 months old at the time of the accident and completed his first year of life in the middle of the jungle, how to fight against inclement weather and the dangerous animals that live in This part of the Colombian jungle…
Finally, and after almost six weeks of searching for the children, the rescue occurred thanks, among other things, to the many traces that the brothers had left behind. By the jungle. In addition, in the wooded area where the plane was found, in the village of Palma Rosa in the municipality of Solano, in Caquetá, food remains were found. These clues and others, such as scissors, a bag or footwear, led the emergency services to the border with Guaviare.
Indigenous women “are very warriors”, emphasizes Fátima Valencia, who adds: “We never let our guard down. Every night we pray.” They entrusted the fate of the minors to the “spirits of tobacco and mambe”, a coca leaf-based preparation used by these indigenous peoples in their rituals.
After the find, the grandparents thanked the hundreds of soldiers and indigenous people who worked shoulder to shoulder in the search. “Also to mother earth who released them,” Fatima added.
Fatima and Fidencio asked to be the first to attend to them: “We have to blow on their bodies so that they gain strength and there we hand them over so that the western part can look at them,” says the grandmother, who hopes that she will be given “custody ” of the brothers after the death of their mother: “I can give them an education, I can still (…) That will be my pride. My daughter is watching and she is going to give me spiritual encouragement, strength, ”she assured.
