• Colombia plane crash, on tenterhooks for the unknowns of 'Operation Hope' to find four missing children after a plane crash
  • Latin America The heroic story of the four lost children in the Colombian Amazon

Almost a hundred indigenous people who know the jungle well will join their knowledge and help in the search for the four younger brothers lost for 21 days after a plane crash in southern Colombia, where three adults also died.

Early on Sunday, a first group of 10 Nukak Indians, the original inhabitants of the jungle area where the Cessna 206 plane crashed on May 1, when it was traveling from the Araracuara indigenous reservation to San José del Guaviare, accompanied the military forces.

But it is expected that up to 85 indigenous people "who have experience in the jungle, in the search for people who are lost, in their rescue," the director of the Victims Unit, Patricia Tobón, told EFE on Sunday in San José del Guaviare, from where the search is being directed and a ritual has been carried out before the groups boarded the helicopter.

"The jungle is not easy, in the jungle not everyone can live, but the indigenous peoples have knowledge and this can help make the rescue operation much more effective," said Tobón, who explained that right now they are the best to help follow the clues that have been found about the whereabouts of the four children.

Lesly Mukutuy, 11; Soleiny Mukutuy, 9; Tien Noriel Ronoque Mukutuy, 4, and 11-month-old baby Cristin Neruman Ranoque have been lost in this vast virgin forest since May 1 and rescue teams have intensified the search since last Tuesday they found the bodies of the three adults traveling with them: his mother, Magdalena Mukutuy, indigenous leader Hermán Mendoza and the pilot of the aircraft, Hernando Murcia.

SUPPORT WITH KNOWLEDGE

The indigenous missions will thus accompany the 150 members of the public force, who continue to advance with technology by air and land, but where the indigenous contribute their ancestral knowledge of the territory and spiritual traditions and can also mediate with uncontacted communities in this vast jungle.

"It is a territory where there are uncontacted indigenous peoples. It is the conservation area of the Chiribiquete, which is a forest that is still a virgin forest," explained Tobón, who does not rule out that precisely the children may have arrived in one of these remote Nukak communities.

Start of the march to find the children. Presidency of ColombiaPresidency of Colombia/EFE

This reinforces the so-called "Operation Hope," which seeks to "locate the four minors as soon as possible," according to the Military Forces, who do not want to rest until they locate the minors.

The Cessna 206 plane crashed in the middle of a leafy part of the virgin forest of Caquetá, when it was making the route from Araracuara to San José del Guaviare. It was the first flight that the family, from an indigenous Uitoto community, had taken to visit the father of two of the children.

THE AIRCRAFT WAS NOT TAMPERED WITH

The Civil Aeronautics (Aerocivil), which coordinates the search missions with the Military Forces, also reported that three investigators have already been in the area of the accident.

The plane, from the private flight company Avianline Charter's, had already suffered an accident in the past, when it performed the function of an ambulance plane.

"There is clarity that the aircraft was not tampered with," Aerocivil director Sergio Paris told media in San Jose del Guaviare, who believes that the pilot, who died in the crash, "did a perfect tree operation."

"The aircraft was not tampered with and that is a certainty that will be given as the investigation progresses," Paris said.

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