Grandmother of children who survived 40 days in Colombian jungle: ‘When they give them to me, I will take them to the Amazon’

On Thursday night, the four siblings who spent 40 days lost in the Amazon jungle were discharged from the military hospital where they were being treated since they were found on June 9. During that time, the children recovered from the malnutrition and dehydration they were experiencing at the time of their rescue. Their story has attracted the whole world’s attention; everyone is eagerly waiting to find out how they managed to survive in one of the planet’s most hostile environments. The children have not spoken and are not expected to do so any time soon, but there are already at least two books and four documentaries in the works that seek to tell the story of what happened.

For the moment, the siblings remain in the custody of the children’s institute of the Family Welfare Services (ICBF). Their mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, died in the plane crash that the children survived, creating a legal vacuum around them. Manuel Ranoque, the stepfather of the two older children and father of the two youngest, should have been given custody, but a complaint has surfaced, alleging that he abused his wife. Ranoque denies this and has demanded that the state release the children to him as soon as possible. “They are my children, not the president’s. That’s all,” he says by telephone. This Friday, he and his lawyer filed a lawsuit against Avianline Charters, the owner of the plane that crashed.

The children’s maternal grandmother, Fatima, is also fighting for custody of the siblings. “I am very happy because they are fine, thank God. [When] they give me the children, I [will] take them to the Amazon,” she said. She and her husband were the ones who alleged that Ranoque beat their daughter and mistreated the children, who would hide from his abuse in the jungle: that gave them the advantage of being familiar with the terrain they had to navigate when they were left alone, in the middle of nowhere. According to Fatima, a third interested party has now appeared: Andrés, Magdalena’s first husband and father of the two oldest children, including Lesly, 13, her siblings’ savior in the jungle. “Now interested people are coming out of the woodwork. Since my daughter divorced him, we hadn’t heard from him it all. Now he’s back,” she said.

This Friday, the authorities held a press conference to clarify the children’s future. “The second part of Operation Hope [the name of the rescue operation] — which is restoring the children’s rights — is beginning,” said Astrid Cáceres, the director of the ICBF. The official asked for caution: “Guaranteeing the rights of the Mucutuy siblings requires a reasonable amount of time that allows us to protect their integrity, until the family environment is safe for their growth.”

The State has elected to take care of the children until a decision is made. The government has created a trust to manage the money the children may receive for telling their story, Colombian President Gustavo Petro told their relatives at a meeting. Production companies from around the world, including several from Hollywood, have bid for the rights to the story, but for the moment they have not received a response. Having already survived a dangerous jungle, the children must now survive a thicket of bureaucracy, lawyers and a feuding family.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition