The baby turned one in the jungle. No one knew if she was still alive.

The youngest was 11 months old.
The oldest was 13.
And for 40 days, four siblings survived alone in the Colombian Amazon.

On May 1, 2023, a small plane carrying the Mucutuy family went down in dense rainforest. The adults on board — including the children’s mother, Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia — did not survive. Lesly, 13, Soleiny, 9, Tien, 4, and baby Cristin did.

In that moment Lesly stopped being only an older sister. She became the person who had to keep three younger children alive.

She pulled supplies from the wreckage: fariña, the cassava flour her family knew well; clothes; a bottle; whatever else could still be used. When that food ran low, she turned to fruit and seeds. She knew which ones were safe because she is Huitoto, raised with knowledge of the forest. She collected rainwater. She carried the baby. She chewed hard palm seeds herself and gave the softer pulp to the little ones. When the rain became too much, they hid in hollow trunks and under shelters she built from branches.

Around them, one of Colombia’s largest searches was underway. Soldiers, Indigenous trackers, helicopters, and dogs followed scraps of evidence: footprints, a baby bottle, discarded diapers, half-eaten fruit. Military teams later said they covered more than 2,600 kilometers through the jungle in Operation Hope.

On June 9, they found them.

All four were alive. Thin. Dehydrated. Exhausted. Stable enough to be flown to Bogotá. Somewhere in those weeks, Cristin had turned one.

Officials later said Lesly’s leadership and Indigenous knowledge were among the main reasons the younger children lived. At 13, she had done what most adults could barely picture.

She kept three children alive for 40 days in the Amazon.

Sources

CNN, June 9–13, 2023 (crash May 1, 2023; children Lesly, 13; Soleiny, 9; Tien, 4; Cristin, 11 months; found June 9 after 40 days; mother Magdalena among the dead; Lesly credited with keeping siblings alive).
Associated Press, June 16, 2023 (fariña, fruit and seeds; water in a bottle; mother died about four days after the crash).
BBC News, June 12, 2023; El País English, June 10–11, 2023.