The four children who survived their plane crash for 40 days in the Colombian Jungle

From the Guardian (UK). Access to the Guardian is free.

The mother of the four young Colombian siblings who managed to survive for almost six weeks in the Amazon jungle clung to life for four days after their plane crashed before telling her children to leave her in the hope of improving their chances of being rescued.

Details of the woman’s final days came as further information emerged about the children’s astonishing feat of endurance.

The father of two of the children, Manuel Ranoque, told reporters on Sunday that his wife, Magdalena Mucutuy, had survived the crash but perished four days later.

“My daughter has told me that their mother was alive for four days,” said Ranoque.

“Before she died, she said to them: ‘Maybe you should go. You guys are going to see the kind of man your dad is, and he’s going to show you the same kind of great love that I have shown you.’”

The children – aged 13, nine, four and 11 months – were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San José del Guaviare when their Cessna plane crashed after the pilot reported engine failure in the early hours of 1 May.

A military sniffer dog found the siblings, who are members of the Huitoto Indigenous community, on Friday after they had spent more than a month in an area where snakes, mosquitoes and other animals abound.

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Valencia, who also visited the children in the Bogotá hospital where they are recuperating, said they were “shattered but in good hands and it’s great they’re alive”.

He added: “We were in the darkness, but now dawn has broken and I have seen the light.”

Damaris Mucutuy, an aunt of the children, told a radio station that “the children are fine” despite being dehydrated and having insect bites. She said they had also been offered mental health support.

A search team found the plane on 16 May in a thick patch of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board but the children were nowhere to be found.

Sensing they could be alive, Colombia’s army stepped up the hunt and flew 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where mist and thick foliage greatly limited visibility. Dozens of Indigenous volunteers also joined the search.