Missing children found after more than month in Amazon

By Stefano Pozzebon and Caitlin Hu, CNN

Four young children have been found alive after more than a month wandering the Colombian Amazon, according to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.

“A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost 40 days ago in the Colombian jungle were found alive,” Petro tweeted on Friday.

Petro also shared a photo that appears to show search crews with the four children, whose condition is unknown.

The children are the only survivors of a May 1 plane crash that killed pilot Hernando Murcia Morales, Yarupari indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández, and their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia.

Their subsequent disappearance into the deep forest had galvanized a massive military-led search operation involving over a hundred Colombian special forces troops and over 70 indigenous scouts combing the area.

For weeks, the search turned up only tantalizing clues, including footprints, a dirty diaper and a bottle. Family members said the oldest child had some experience in the forest, but hopes waned the longer that the children remained missing.

Early hopes arose in mid-May when Petro mistakenly tweeted that the children had been found. He was later forced to backtrack.

News of their survival in the wild now is all the more extraordinary at such a young age; the eldest is just 13 years old and the youngest still an infant.