Colombian Children Rescued in Jungle Had Been Fleeing for Their Lives
The four children who survived an almost unfathomable 40 days in the Colombian jungle after their tiny plane crashed in the Amazon rainforest had boarded the plane because they were fleeing for their lives.
Manuel Ranoque, the father of the two youngest survivors, explained in an interview that an armed group that forcibly recruited children by threatening violence had seized control of their home region in southern Colombia.
Fearing their family was next, he said, relatives had tried to fly the children out of the territory, to a city where they could live safely.
Then the children's escape plane crashed, killing their mother and two other adults and sending the quartet on a traumatic weekslong survival journey in the Amazon jungle. The oldest of the children, Lesly, 13, played the role of guide and mother to her siblings, helping them navigate the forest.
Source: The New York Times
