Bogot: The four Indigenous children rescued after wandering the Colombian Amazon for 40 days are recovering and in “high spirits”, welfare officials said Monday, even drawing a picture thought to depict a missing army search dog.
Siblings Lesly, Soleiny, Tien Noriel and Cristin — aged 13, nine, five and one, respectively — were receiving treatment at a military hospital in Bogota after they were found hungry and dehydrated last Friday, having survived a plane crash more than five weeks earlier.
Their mother had died in the aftermath of the crash, which killed the two other adults they were traveling with.
By Monday, the rescued children were “in high spirits,” Adriana Velasquez of the Colombian Family Welfare Institute said in a video sent to media.
“They have been coloring, drawing. They love to talk,” she added.
The army released a drawing attributed to the children that depicts Wilson, a rescue dog that went missing during the search.
“The dog was with them, he would leave and come back again… but then he disappeared,” said Narciso Mucutuy, the children’s grandfather, in a video released by the Ministry of Defense.
The army said on Saturday it would keep looking for Wilson, a six-year-old Belgian shepherd who was key to finding some of the items left behind by the children in the jungle.
“No one is left behind,” the army said in a tweet including a video of the dog.
While alone, the children survived in part by eating a three-pound package of cassava flour found in the plane wreckage, as well as fruit from the jungle.
