Remember the four children who miraculously survived 40 days alone in the Amazon after a plane crash? Well, it turns out there’s a wild twist to that story. The reason they were on that flight in the first place was reportedly that their mother was rushing to go see her cheating husband.
As we previously reported, the Colombian children — 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9-year-old Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 4-year-old Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, and infant Cristin Ranoque Mucutuy — were traveling with their mom Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia and two others to San José del Guaviare on May 1. Horrifically, the pilot declared an emergency, reporting an engine failure mid-flight… and the aircraft disappeared off the radars. Rescuers quickly located the crash site, and the three adults’ bodies were discovered in the plane’s wreckage. The children, though, were nowhere to be found.
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Amazingly, after forty days alone in the forest, the children were found alive last Friday — having somehow survived over a month alone in the Amazon! They were weak and needed food — but the most important thing is they were ALIVE!
Colombian President Gustavo Petro revealed in a news conference at the time, according to The New York Times:
“They fended for themselves. It is their knowledge from the Indigenous families, their knowledge on how to live in the jungle, that has saved them. They are children of the jungle. And now they are children of Colombia.”
Incredible! But… why did this even happen in the first place? Well, apparently Magdalena was trying to fix the rocky relationship with her cheating husband.
According to what Magdalena’s brother told DailyMail.com, the father of the children, Manuel Ranoque, left his wife for another woman. On Wednesday, Dairo Mucutuy claimed the father originally left his sister in their Indigenous community for Bogotá, the capital city of the country, and told her he was being threatened by FARC guerrillas. Once he made it to the city, however, he had an affair — and brought his mistress back home to their community. As you can imagine, this broke the heart of his wife of seven years. Just awful!
Dairo said to the outlet:
“What happened is that Manuel had come to this city and here he cheated on my sister. The thing is, he took the woman he cheated with back to the community. So my sister of course left their house because of the affair and came to live with me and my partner and two children.”
Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, he left for Bogotá again while leading his wife on with talk of rekindling their romance and fixing their marriage. It was this hope that made Magdalena want to follow him and try to save her marriage, so she boarded a plane which would later crash on her way to see her estranged husband. So, so tragic…
He said they were aware the mother was communicating with Manuel, but she seemed very distressed whenever she would talk to him. This eventually lead her to fleeing to see him:
“Manuel went back to Bogota, but he left a bag for her and inside was a piece of paper with a phone number. Magdalena was communicating with him. But we noticed when she talked with him she would hide. And we would sometimes hear her crying. We believe somehow she was fooled into trying to come to Bogota. We are not exactly sure of the reasons.”
Sadly now, as the children recover in the hospital, a rough custody battle has broken out between the mom and dad’s families, while their maternal grandmother turned the case over the Columbian Institute of Family Welfare. According to the outlet, Lesly and Soleiny also have a different father than the other two children, Andres Jacombaire — and he’s also battling for custody.
The most painful part of all, though, according to Magdalena’s brother, is the sudden loss of their mother:
“We didn’t know Magdalena was leaving with the children. The most painful thing is my sister never said goodbye to us. We didn’t get to talk. It hurt when I found out what was happening between her and Manuel. I am so sad I never got to talk to her properly about it. I felt I didn’t want to pressure her about something that was so difficult for her. I was waiting for the right moment. But that moment never came because she obviously made her decision to leave and we didn’t know about it.”
Recalling the last moment he saw his sister alive, Dairo said:
“Right before, she came to a community meeting and we thought she was going on to our aunt’s house. We didn’t know her goal was to take that plane. Maybe she felt confused. We’ll never know now.”
So heartbreaking…
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As for the children, Dairo’s biggest hope is that they can all be under the same roof:
“The hope is for the kids to stay together, because of what they went through. Lesly got them all through this. And that makes a special bond. We want them always to stay together and that Manuel does not fight for custody. I have talked to the older two’s father, Andres. He has seen the children and he told me that this is not the time for fighting and division. It is the time to focus on the well-being, safety and comfort of the children.”
He thinks maybe the children’s best option is living with their maternal grandmother:
“Maybe it would be fine for them to stay with their grandmother. Eventually they are going to go through psychiatric assistance as well as their medical help. That will be through the Colombian government. And then, only then, are we going to decide who will take custody of the kids.”
The uncle of the children is also dismissing Manuel’s claims of their mother being alive “for four days” after the crash — he’s insistent that the children’s father is just trying to “create something”:
“Lesly has said that on impact, her mother died. And that when she saw the bodies, the baby (Cristin) was moving so she pulled the baby out. The baby was with the mother. It is false that he was saying that she was alive four days. She died on impact … I know he’s trying to create something. But we want to say things as they are. We don’t want different stories going around. He’s saying one thing, we are sticking to what we know.”
If Manuel wants to create a “conflict” — Dairo says he’s prepared for it:
“And I know he might be doing this to create some kind of conflict. We don’t want to go there. But if we have to go there, we are going to stand our ground.”
He’s also not pleased with how the children’s father so loosely used threats of the FARC guerrillas to allegedly try and manipulate his wife:
“Saying those words is very dangerous. That is also potentially making us all in the spotlight. It’s a very serious thing to say. There is no evidence he was threatened. But the consequences of his words could create a dangerous situation for all our family.”
Such an awful situation… it looks like the worst isn’t over for these poor kids yet. We hope this can get resolved quickly for them and without much issue.
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