Seeds became the 'secret weapon' that helped 4 children in a plane crash survive 40 days in the forest

Few people expected that survival knowledge in the deep forest would help children survive a plane crash through 40 terrifying days without adults by their side.

The "miracle" seed

When four indigenous children were found last week after 40 days stranded in the Colombian Amazon jungle, rescuers noticed that the oldest, 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy, was holding something between her teeth.

"We saw her holding a few seeds between her cheek and jawbone to chew slowly," said Eliecer Muñoz, one of four indigenous officers who came into contact with the children.

Muñoz told CNN that the seeds the girl chewed were from a native Amazonian palm called Oenocarpus Bataua , commonly known as "milpesos" in Colombia.

Muñoz said the fruit is rich in fat and Amazonian tribes use it to make vegetable oil, but Leslie's seeds were not yet ripe when she was found.

" She kept them like that so that the warmth from her mouth would expand the seeds and she could feed the flesh to her younger siblings. That was how the little ones survived, " Muñoz said .

Native Amazonian Palm.

Since the children were brought home, reporters and survival experts have been trying to answer this question: How did four children — the youngest just an infant — survive in the middle of the Amazon rainforest for so long?

Meanwhile, it took a team of more than 130 special forces soldiers and some of the most skilled local guides in the country to find the children.

The stretch of forest where the four children were found is one of the most remote and inhospitable in Colombia, home to an abundance of wildlife such as jaguars, anacondas and poisonous beetles, where rain can last more than 15 hours a day and visibility is sometimes limited to 10 meters due to thick vegetation.

Lesly and the children were dangerously malnourished when they were found. For more than a month without adults, the children appear to have survived on wild berries and more than 1.3kg of cassava flour, a traditional protein-rich food in the Amazonian diet, which they salvaged from the wreckage of the plane crash.

The group of four children also found one of hundreds of survival kits left in the forest by the search and rescue operation, including small food rations, electrolytes and a lighter.

"We understand that the children only used one of the military kits, the rest was just fruit, nuts and water," said Henry Guerrero, an indigenous elder who was also part of the team that found them.

Local pride

Only those with extensive knowledge of the forest and remarkable resilience could survive there for more than a month - let alone keep three others alive.

For weeks, most of the Colombian public following the story had no idea what skills Lesly and her siblings possessed. But their uncle, Fidencio Valencia, was not discouraged : 'They know the jungle… even though they are just kids, we hope they are alive and have access to water,' he told reporters on May 19.

His words were proven by facts.

The children have not yet spoken publicly and are recovering at Colombia's Central Military Hospital in Bogota. A statement from the hospital on June 14 said the children were out of danger but were still considered at high risk due to infectious diseases and severe malnutrition.

The children's survival strategies show impressive knowledge of plants and an ability to plan for the future.

During the search, rescuers found discarded fruits such as avicure, a wild plant similar to passion fruit, that the children ate while alone in the jungle. Milpesos seeds were also found along their footprints, and Colombian authorities believe Lesly took some baby milk from the abandoned plane to feed 11-month-old Cristin for several days.

When found, the children had bottles that they used to collect water, either from streams or from rainwater, which was abundant in the forest.

The achievement is a proud moment for the Amazon's indigenous communities. "Thanks to these children, we have 'won over technology ,'" Guerrero beamed at a recent press conference in Bogota . "Thanks to the children, we have realized that we, the indigenous people, are important."

While the survival of the four children remains a miracle, it is certainly due in large part to their traditional knowledge of the forest where they were born and raised. Although Colombia deployed the military to search for them, four local guides were the first to discover the children.

In particular, Lesly was praised for not only surviving but also ensuring her younger siblings would survive after losing their mother in the plane crash.

"One of the traditional duties of indigenous women is to care for their siblings as if they were their own children. The older sister is basically a second mother, and I think that's how Lesly was raised," said Nelly Kuiru, an indigenous activist from the murui settlement of La Chorrera.