On May 1, a small Cessna airplane crashed in the South of Colombia, near the Amazone jungle. An indigenous family was being transported in it, including four children. After 370 hours of intense searching under tropical rainfalls, the airplane was found, with the dead bodies of 3 adults: the pilot, an indigenous leader, and the mother of the children. The Military Forces, the Red Cross, and other civil forces like fire brigades entered the dense jungle of Guaviare to continue the search. A dog found a pink bottle near the airplane and rests of fruit were found that had been eaten some three days ago, sparking hope that the children could be alive.

On the 22^nd of May, 70 indigenous peoples joined the Military Forces in their search, and on the 24^th, new evidence was found: a pair of shoes, a diaper, and a carcass of a phone. The government sent light and sound devices that could be seen and heard at some 1000 meters distance in the dense jungle. Hundreds of kits with food and water were thrown out over the palm trees. On the 30th, footprints were found of the eldest child, Lesly (13), with the footprints of a rescue dog next to them. Hope resurged; the dog has to be with the children, and the children have to be alive.

Yesterday evening, at five, the children were found, after more than 900 hours of searching, by Nukak indigenous people and military forces. They seemed extremely weakened, but alive; Lesly Mucutuy (13), Soleiny Mucutuy (9), Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy (4), and Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy (1). They survived 42 days in the jungle and of course, Colombians (who are delightfully emotional) shed massive tears yesterday evening watching the pictures of the children on social media.

I also cried my eyes out watching the video of the grandfather of the children, speaking about how indigenous people from all over the country gathered, chewing coca leaves (mambeando) and asking Mother Earth to bring back the children alive, and I thought about the many things that are possible when people unite and leave their differences aside. Then another, less positive, idea came up in my mind: under former governments, elite governments, these children would have died.

I believe they would have never made such incredible efforts in terms of money and manpower in order to rescue four indigenous children, as for the upper classes that ruled the country until 2022, indigenous children don’t have the same value as white, high-class Colombian children. Sounds ugly? Yeah, that’s right, sounds really ugly, but I have seen much evidence of horrible racism against indigenous and Black people during the years I’ve been in civil society now.  

So my final conclusion is political, as always, and positive, after all. In spite of the many challenges the Petro government is facing lately (will write about that in my next post), one thing is for sure: it is a government from and for the people from below. I don’t have any doubt about that.