The four Colombian children who were rescued alive after 40 days in the rainforest after a plane crash in June have been discharged from the hospital in the capital Bogotá.
After more than a month under medical supervision, the siblings were initially moved to a home, a spokesman for the Colombian Institute for the Welfare of Families (ICBF) told the German Press Agency on Friday. They are in good health.
The maternal grandparents have applied for custody. The mother of the children aged 13, 9, 5 and one died in the plane crash. The father, who had fled the region due to constant threats from the FARC splinter group, did not live with the children.
Search parties found the children in the rainforest in early June. They crashed in the wilderness on May 1st with a propeller plane – and then had to fend for themselves. On May 16, more than two weeks after the accident, members of the Colombian army’s special forces reached the wreckage of the plane and found the bodies of the pilot, the mother and an indigenous leader.
The siblings – a boy and three girls – belong to an indigenous community. Their knowledge of the region may have helped them survive in the jungle.
