Indigenous adaptation to the jungle
The brothers belong to the Huitoto people, originally from the Amazon. “They are indigenous children and they know the jungle very well. They know what to eat and what not. They managed to survive thanks to that and their spiritual strength,” Luis Acosta, who participated in the search operations on behalf of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC).
General Sánchez explained that the indigenous roots made it easier for them to adapt to the hostile environment of the jungle.
“We have a particular connection with nature,” Javier Betancourt, another ONIC leader, summarized for AFP. “The world needs this particular relationship with nature, favoring those who, like the indigenous people, live in the jungle and take care of it.”
makeshift tent
Almost 200 soldiers and native explorers, supported by sniffer dogs, followed the trail of the minors through a region where it rains 16 hours a day. They traveled 2,656 kilometers, a journey equivalent to the distance between Caracas and Quito.
“It was a spectacular amalgamation of indigenous knowledge and military art,” praised General Sánchez.
They finally found the brothers just 5 kilometers from the aircraft and when their forces began to fade: “The first thing they asked us (they said) was that they were hungry. They wanted to eat rice pudding, they wanted to eat bread, it was just eating, eating “Guerrero said.