Custody battle breaks out over children who survived 40 days in jungle after Colombia plane crash

Maternal grandparents accuse children’s father of domestic abuse

A dispute over custody has erupted among relatives of four Indigenous children who miraculously survived a plane crash and spent 40 days alone in the Amazon rainforest in Colombia.

The Colombia family welfare agency said they were not ruling out the possibility of domestic abuse experienced by the mother who died in the crash.

Four children, Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four and one-year-old Cristin, survived in the dense Colombian jungle teeming with snakes, jaguars and mosquitos for over a month.

The children, who were travelling with their mother, were stranded in the rainforest after their Cessna single-engine propeller plane crashed due to engine failure on 1 May.

The children, who belonged to the Huitoto Indigenous group, survived by eating cassava flour, seeds, and fruits they found in the rainforest.

The siblings were the only survivors of the crash that killed everyone else onboard – including their mother Magdalena Mucutui Valencia.

The head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, Astrid Caceres, said they are investigating the family background as the maternal grandparents are vying for custody with their father.

“We are going to talk, investigate, learn a little about the situation,” Ms Caceres told BLU radio.

She said they are not ruling out that they and their mother may have experienced domestic abuse.

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro greets a nurse tending to one of the four Indigenous children who survived an Amazon plane crash that killed three adults and then braved the jungle for 40 days before being found alive (Cesar Carrion)

“The most important thing at this moment is the children’s health, which is not only physical but also emotional, the way we accompany them emotionally,” she said.

The children, who are currently receiving treatment in the hospital, have been assigned to a caseworker by the welfare agency at the request of their maternal grandparents.

The decision came after Narciso Mucutuy, maternal grandfather, accused their father, Manuel Ranoque, of beating his daughter. He said that domestic harassment forced the children to hide in the forest when fighting broke out.

Speaking to the reporters, Mr Ranoque acknowledged there had been trouble at home, but he characterised it as a private family matter, not “gossip for the world.

Mr Ranoque said: “Verbally, sometimes, yes. Physically, very little. We had more verbal fights.”

He claimed the welfare agency would not allow him to meet the two oldest children at the hospital.

The children were flying from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane pilot declared an emergency. The aircraft fell off the radar a short time later.

The authorities began searching for survivors, recruiting around 200 soldiers and Indigenous people who knew the area dispatched to comb through the jungle.

After days of relentless search through storms, thick vegetation, and marshy terrain, army radios could be heard saying: “Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle.”

The children were found with signs of dehydration and insect bites and have been offered mental health services.

Revealing the harrowing details of their survival in the jungle, eldest daughter Lesly said their mother was alive for about four days after the crash before dying.

Mr Ranoque said that their mother likely asked the children to “go away” and asked them “to leave the wreckage site to survive”.