Colombia: Children found alive after 40 days in the jungle; Dutch rescue team took part in search

Colombian authorities received help from the Netherlands in the search for the four young children who were found alive in the Amazon forest. Humberto Hinestrosa and his wife Anne van den Ouwelant have been closely involved in the search for the past 40 days after the plane the children were on crashed. "I was speechless. I couldn't believe it. I had been waiting for this news for a month," Hinestrosa said.

Hinestrosa is the founder of Rescue International, an organization that helps authorities search remote areas. The Netherlands-based organization has helped in the search for Argentine football player Emiliano Sala's plane in 2019, among other missions.

For the search for the Colombian children, that according to the BBC belong to the Huitoto indigenous group, Rescue International mapped the right search area. This was one of the reasons why the crashed plane could be recovered earlier.

On Friday night, Hinestrosa received a message from a local journalist saying that the children had been found. "I immediately tried to have the news confirmed. I immediately looked for reliable sources and checked everything," he said.

Hinestrosa hesitated because Colombian President Gustavo Petro had previously reported that the children had been found alive. That then proved not to be true. Still, he hoped for good news even in the last few days. "In the last two or three days, the search has been quiet, which often means a development in this kind of operation."