Time passes, but the hope that four children, aged 13, 9, 4 years and 11 months, will be found, wandering in jungle her Colombia nearly a month after the small plane crash, it is still intact, according to authorities.

“Based on the evidence that has been found, we have concluded that the children are live. If they were dead, it would certainly be easier to find them, since they would be motionless” and the specially trained dogs participating in the searches to locate them would “lead us” to where they are, General Pedro Sánchez explained yesterday Monday to the radio station W.

The more than 200 men who have mobilized, including military and indigenous Uitoto people accustomed to life in the jungle, raised hopes when they found last Wednesday pair of shoes and two diapers.

The general estimated that it is very likely that the units passed even “100 meters” from the children, “comparing the evidence found with data from GPS”, but the rains, vegetation and marshy ground make the investigation difficult. “Over there at twenty meters you can’t see anything,” he explained.

Mr. Sanchez, however, admitted that he finds it “strange” that the children “have not stopped” moving, “despite the dropping of survival kits” with food and water and “more than 10,000 leaflets” with instructions.

Investigations around the wreckage of the aircraft span a vast area of ​​323 square kilometres.

The Air Force participated in the search operation – christened “Hope” – with three helicopters. In one, a loudspeaker was installed that could be heard “from a distance of about 1,500 meters”: through it a recorded message from the children’s grandmother was played.

In the Uitoto language, the woman told her grandchildren that they were looking for them and asked them to stay where they were so the soldiers could find them and rescue them.

Satellites, projectors and ceremonies

Satellites were deployed to study the path the children might have taken in the jungle. On Sunday, the army set up searchlights with a range of three kilometers, in the hope that the children would see the light “and come closer to us”, Colonel Fausto Aveyaneda told television networks.

All efforts so far have proved unsuccessful.

Indigenous people are not stopping “spiritual rites by which they ask the jungle to speak to them” to find the children, according to the government.

The findings so far

The Cessna 206 aircraft in which the children were traveling disappeared from radar on May 1 while flying on the outskirts of San Jose del Guaviare, in the department of Caquetas, over the forest of the part of the Amazon that runs through Colombia.

It was found on May 15 after crashing into dense vegetation. At the scene were the bodies of the three adults who had been aboard it — including the children’s mother and the pilot of the small plane.

A powerful force was mobilized, which quickly found “evidence of life”: footprints, half-eaten fruit, baby bottles, and even “an improvised shelter, made of sticks and branches.”

A pair of scissors and a hair ribbon were also found.

Their grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, told AFP that he is always hopeful because he has faith in his eldest granddaughter, who is “strong”, “intelligent” and was able to lead her siblings to safety.

However, Mr. Valencia, faithful to the beliefs of the indigenous people of the Amazon, added that a supernatural and “mysterious” force has so far prevented the rescue of the children….