The family of the four children lost for 21 days after a plane crash in southern Colombia asked that the search efforts continue and not let up until they are found.
“We beg you to continue collaborating with us, not to slack off until they have been found”the children’s grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, assured EFE.
Valencia is together with other members of his family in Villavicencio, capital of the department of Meta (center), where they transferred the body of their daughter and mother of the children, Magdalena Mukutuy, which they recovered together with two other adults (the indigenous leader Hermán Mendoza and the pilot of the aircraft, Hernando Murcia) inside the crashed aircraft on May 1.
The family is grateful for the efforts being made by both the Government and the Army as well as the indigenous communities to find Lesly Mukutuy, 11 years old; Soleiny Mukutuy, 9 years old; Tien Noriel Ronoque Mukutuy, 4 years old, and the 11-month-old baby Cristin Neruman Ranoque.
And he asks that they collaborate with air and river transportation so that the personalities of the Araracuara indigenous reservation, from where the aircraft left and where this indigenous family lives, can participate in the search, as one of the parents of the four minors already does. .
THE FIRST TRIP
The Cessna 206 plane crashed in the middle of a lush part of the virgin jungle of Caquetá, when it was making the route from Araracuara and San José del Guaviare.
It was the first flight the family had taken and they did so to visit the father of two of the children. “He called for them to fly in those Araracuara planes,” explained the grandfather, who describes the minors as “very affectionate”.
Araracuara is a “large reservation” where several communities live between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, and in fact the plane is the only way to get out of there.
Before, the family had to take a boat and walk along a “terrible, horrible road” from the Uitoto community of Chuquà to where the dirt track is from where the plane of the private flight company Avianline Charter’s took off.
The authorities, led by military forces and Civil Aeronautics, are incessantly searching for minors through a vast jungle area and have intensified in recent days the work by sky, land and river, with more than a hundred troops who, starting today, More than fifty indigenous people from various communities who know the area well will begin to join, especially the Nukak, the ethnic group that lives in the jungles of Guaviare.