When a plane carrying four young children crashed in the Amazon rain forest, there was little hope of finding them alive. 

Rescuers spent more than two weeks searching for the wreckage of the small plane that had nosedived in a remote area of southern Colombia on May 1, 2023. 

Onboard the flight was an Indigenous woman from the Huitoto tribe called Magdalena Mucutuy and her four children – all of whom were presumed dead. 

After 16 days of scouring the jungle, rescuers finally reached the site of the crash, where the remains of three adults – including Magdalena’s – were recovered. 

But the bodies of her children, Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien, four, and 11-month-old Cristin, were nowhere to be found. 

It soon became apparent that the Mucutuy siblings had miraculously survived and had wandered into the depths of the rain forest.

The four youngsters would end up spending a total of 40 days lost in the jungle before a drug-induced hallucination led an Indigenous elder to them. 

Despite the unforgiving conditions of the Amazon rain forest, they miraculously survived against all odds – eating fruit and seeds and fighting off wild animals. 

When the children were finally found after an intense six-week search that gripped the nation, two of the four emaciated children were said to be just days away from death.  

Military personnel and Indigenous volunteers who were familiar with the Amazon’s rough terrain embarked on a widespread search to find the siblings, and they were optimistic to begin with. 

In this photo released by Colombia’s Armed Forces Press Office, soldiers and Indigenous men pose for a photo with the four Indigenous children who were missing after a deadly plane crash, in the Solano jungle, Caqueta state, Colombia, Friday, June 9, 2023

A small plane crashed into thick jungle in southern Colombia, killing all three adults on board, but the four children onboard all miraculously survived

After all, they had found signs of hope early on in their search: a baby bottle, half-eaten fruit, dirty diapers.

Rescuers yelled the eldest sister, Lesly’s, name and played a recorded message from the children’s grandmother asking them to stay in place.  Meanwhile, helicopters dropped boxes with food and leaflets with messages.

On the ground, nearly 120 members of the military and more than 70 Indigenous men looked for the children, day and night. 

They scoured the unrelenting landscape, where Amazonian fire ants crawled on them and mosquitoes feasted on their blood. One searcher almost lost an eye to a tree branch, while others fell ill. 

They found clues to the children’s whereabouts, including a small human footprint they believed to be Lesly’s. But still, they were nowhere to be found.

But as days turned into weeks, the punishing rains and harsh terrains of the Amazon had diminished their spirits. 

Some searchers had already walked more than 930 miles – the distance between Lisbon and Paris. 

Exhaustion was setting in, and a decision had already been made to call off the search.

Volunteers and rescue personnel search the site of the plane crash in the Amazon rainforest 

This handout picture released by the Colombian Army shows soldiers and indigenous people posing for a picture before searching for the missing chidren at the Colombian Amazon forest in the municipality of Solano, department of Caqueta, Colombia on May 23, 2023

A baby’s bottle was found in the jungle near the crash site, sparking home among rescuers 

Picture shows a wild mango volunteers found during their search, which appeared to have been bitten by children 

Image shows a yam seemingly with children’s bite marks 

On the 39th day, Manuel Ranoque, the father of the two youngest children who took part in the search, turned to one of the most sacred rituals of the Amazon’s Indigenous tribes – ayahuasca. 

Manuel and other Indigenous volunteers believed the hallucinogenic – which comes in the form of a tea – would induce visions that could lead them to the lost children. 

He sipped his concoction and sat in a trance for a few hours. When the psychotropic effects passed, he told them it hadn’t worked. 

Some volunteers were ready to give up. But the next morning, an elder called Jose Rubio reached for what was left of the ayahuasca and drank it.

Indigenous communities across South America take the hallucinogenic to connect with themselves and with nature. Elder Rubio was convinced it would lead him to the children. 

After some time, Elder Rubio awoke from his trance after seeing the four siblings in a vision. 

‘We’ll find the children today’, he told the volunteers. 

On day 40, after Elder Rubio took the ayahuasca, searchers combed the rain forest one last time. 

Image shows a footprint volunteers came across in the jungle, believed to have belonged to the eldest sister, Lesly

His hallucination had reignited hopes among the Indigenous volunteers that they would find the children. 

Members of the military, however, were more skeptical. 

After all, Elder Rubio’s vision did not provide any specifics about where the four siblings might be. 

Soldiers and volunteers fanned out in different directions across the jungle, but as the day went on, they trickled one by one back to base camp with no sign of the children.

But just as sadness and defeat began to set in the camp, they got some news. 

A soldier had heard via radio that the four children had been found – around three miles from the crash site, in a small clearing. 

Photographs from the day showed the emaciated Mucutuy siblings wrapped in foil blankets and hooked onto IV drips after they were rescued. 

The children were lifted out of the the rain forest by helicopter and flown to a hospital in the capital, Bogota, where they were treated by doctors for their injuries and dehydration. 

Pictured: Manuel Rnaoque, the father of the two youngest Mucutuy children. He joined the search effort to locate the four siblings, and turned to the hallucinogenic ayahuasca to find answers 

The children were finally found after 40 days lost in the Amazon. Image shows army members assisting the four Indigenous siblings after they were located on June 9, 2023

The two youngest siblings were said to have been days away from death when they were rescued

Military personnel unload from a plane one of four children who were missing after a plane crash, at the CATAM Military Airport in Bogota, Colombia, 10 June 2023, before being transferred to a military hospital

Screen grab shows one of the children being rescued from the Colombian jungle 

Picture shows one of the emaciated siblings being checked by members of the Colombian army after miraculously surviving 40 days in the rainforest 

Lesly told family members that their mother died from her injuries around four days after the crash.

Her and her siblings survived by collecting water in a plastic bottle and eating cassava flour, fruit and seeds. 

They were found carrying two small bags holding clothes, a flashlight, two phones and a music box. 

The children quickly became a symbol of resilience and survival around the world, while eldest sister Lesly was praised for her leadership. 

Lesly later told how she barely slept and at one point had to kill a snake to protect her younger siblings. 

She knew which jungle fruits were safe to eat, and made a makeshift rod to catch fish, which the kids ate raw.

Lesly also told of how she carried her younger sister, who had sustained a leg injury from the crash and was unable to walk, on her back throughout the 40 days. 

After her rescue, while recovering in hospital, Lesly drew moving pictures of her time in the jungle. 

One picture depicts a young girl in the rain forest, with the Colombian flag and trees in the background. Written across the page are the words: ‘Always blessed’. 

Despite Lesly’s tireless efforts to keep her and her siblings fed, they struggled to get enough nutrition, and the two youngest children were close to death when they were finally rescued.

The father of four children who were missing after a plane crash looks on during their arrival at the CATAM Military Airport in Bogota, Colombia, 10 June 2023, before being transferred to a military hospital

Lesly  drew moving pictures of her time in the jungle 

Picture shows one of the drawings made by Lesly depicting her time lost in the rainforest 

Colombian president Gustavo Petro praised the Mucutuy siblings’ resilience. He is pictured here visiting them in hospital 

Colombia’s First Lady Veronica Alcocer (L) and Sofia Petro (R), daughter of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, visiting one of the four Indigenous children in hospital following their rescue 

President Petro appears in this image embracing, Fidencio Valencia, the grandfather of the four Indigenous children, in a Colombian hospital

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Tragic first words spoken by children who survived 40 days in the Colombian jungle are revealed as rescuers describe how the eldest child ran towards them holding a baby when she saw them

Colombian president Gustavo Petro praised the Mucutuy siblings’ resilience, and said the youngsters were an ‘example of survival’, declaring that their ordeal ‘will remain in history’.

‘The jungle saved them’, he said. ‘They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia’. 

But Indigenous rituals saved them too, their father Manuel claimed. 

Speaking to journalists after the children were found, he said ayauhuasca ‘is of the utmost respect. It is the maximum concentration that is made in our spiritual world as an indigenous people.’  

Discussing why volunteers chose to drink the hallucinogenic tea in the jungle, he said: ‘That was so that the goblin, that cursed devil, would release my children’. 

Following the sensational rescue which saw the siblings reunited with their family, they were struck by a sinister twist. 

After being discharged from hospital, they were placed in government care after it emerged that Manuel – the father of the two youngest children – was accused of sexually abusing one of his stepdaughters before the ill-fated flight, an allegation he denied. 

Worse still, Magdalena’s relatives said they suspected that the children spent such a long time in the jungle because they were hiding from rescue teams, fearful of being returned to their father.

Head the Colombian armed forces, General Helder Giraldo, accepts the moving drawings of  Lesly Mucutuy, 13, in hospital

Manuel was imprisoned in August 2023 over the accusations and he was formally prosecuted in October 2023 with sexually assaulting a minor.

The siblings remain in the care of Colombia’s Institute for Family Welfare, which on the one-year anniversary of the rescue posted a photo of them.

In a statement, the institute said they were healthy and growing up successfully under state care.