“When I woke up there was a lot of blood (…) I heard my little brothers crying.”
Thus begins the powerful testimony of Lesly Mucutuythe oldest of the four minor siblings rescued in June 2023 after spending 40 days lost in the Colombian Amazon, according to a new Netflix documentary.
“The Lost Boys” reconstructs the rescue carried out by indigenous volunteers and military forces after the aircraft in which the minors were traveling with their mother and two other adults crashed in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
Only the children Lesly, Soleiny, Tien and Cristinthen aged 14, 9, 4 and 1 respectively, survived the accident.
The Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF), the entity in charge of their care, reported on the anniversary of the rescue that the brothers were enjoying “the life that boys and girls should have at that age” once recovered and treated medically. and psychologically.
The new production on Netflix, in collaboration with Caracol Televisión and directed by the British Orlando von Einsiedel, compiles a variety of testimonies such as those of volunteers and participants in the rescuethe children’s teacher, their aunt and the one offered by Lesly to the authorities.
Lesly portrays the harshness with which the eldest of the siblings experienced the trauma of spending 40 days fighting to survive.
They are also one of the few known statements by minors about their experience.
“I knew I had to protect them.”
One of the hardest fragments is when Lesly admits, according to the reconstruction of the testimony she gave to the authorities, that there was a moment when she decided to abandon her brothers.
“I left, but after 20 minutes I regretted it and knew I had to come back. I knew I had to protect them. “Cristin and Tien almost died,” Lesly said.
The eldest of the siblings took on the responsibility of taking care of them and guiding them through the dangers of the jungle.
Located between the departments of Caquetá and Guaviare, The jungle where the children wandered is hostile, dense and inhabited by voracious creatures. like jaguars or snakes.
In this threatening environment, Lesly, injured in one leg and “crawling on her knees,” provided food and protection to her siblings.
“My mother taught me a lot about fruits that I could eat in the jungle, like the ‘mil pesos’. I made a fishing rod. We caught some fish. We ate them raw. “They tasted horrible,” he said.
According to the teenager’s testimony, when she woke up after the accident his “mom made noises and then stopped making them”indicating that he witnessed his last breath.
“There was a lot of blood”he said. It was then that he led his brothers to look for food away from the plane. “What worried me most was that baby Cristin was still alive.”
Lesly admitted that she couldn’t sleep, but she tried to get her little brothers to sleep at night.
The minor describes moments when she heard the call of the rescue teams without being able to find them: “We tried to follow the voice that was calling us, but it disappeared.”
The children were found with signs of malnutrition. Tien and Cristin, the youngest, just four and one year old, had delicate moments.
“Tien was so weak he couldn’t stand up,” Lesly said.
The eldest of the siblings said that “when she saw the man,” referring to one of the rescuers, she “collapsed.” And somehow it was also relieved.
“I no longer had to keep my little brothers alive. “We were safe,” he concluded.
Indigenous wisdom and national unity
In addition to a rescue story, Von Einsiedel’s documentary is also a story of unity, collaboration and overcoming differences through a major challenge.
The film reveals the initial mistrust that the indigenous volunteers and the military maintained during the search, called in Colombia “Operation Hope”.
“I was drawn to this particular narrative because it was clear that within it there were many flashes of incredible human resilience and strength, not only in the children’s struggle to survive alone in the jungle, but also in the way in which the rescuers indigenous people and the Army managed to overcome their differences and fears to unite in a dangerous and epic mission to rescue the children,” said the director in a statement sent by Netflix to BBC Mundo.
The Colombian media continues to talk about “miracle” and “heroism” to refer to the survival of the children for 40 days in the jungle.
But the truth is that this event also highlighted Centuries of indigenous heritage and wisdom in Colombia that contributed to the happy outcome.
Shortly after the children were found, BBC Mundo interviewed Alex Rufino, a Ticuna indigenous expert in jungle care.
In the conversation, Rufino said that the epic language used by media and institutions in Colombia revealed an ignorance of the indigenous world.
More than lost, he said, “the children were in their environment, under the care of the jungle and the wisdom of years of indigenous populations in contact with nature.”
The new documentary on Netflix explores this notion in a country with centuries of indigenous exclusion and lack of understanding about the wisdom and worldview of the original settlers.
media phenomenon
The children’s story kept Colombia and the planet in suspense for weeks. Almost a year and a half after the rescue, several literary and documentary productions reconstruct this event that continues to generate global interest.
The Amazon Prime platform had already released the documentary “Operation Hope: the lost children of the Amazon”in which actors and family members recreate the events.
Previously, with the same name “Operation Hope”, the General Rafael Reyes Prieto Higher War School launched a book narrated by commandos of the Military Forces “who joined together in a desperate fight against time and the wildest nature to find the children alive.”
The Colombian investigative journalist Daniel Coronel He also published a book under the title “The Children of the Amazon: 40 Days Lost in the Jungle”, in which, through multiple interviews, he explains how a rescue occurred that many considered impossible.
On the occasion of the anniversary of the rescue, BBC Mundo asked the ICBF for interviews with the children or their legal representatives, but it was not possible to arrange them.
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- What happened to the indigenous children rescued a year ago after spending 40 days lost in the Colombian Amazon
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