Colombia honors searchers and sniffer dog that helped find 4 children who survived plane crash

By MANUEL RUEDA
Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia’s president has handed out 86 medals to soldiers, Indigenous volunteers and others who helped rescue four children who spent 40 days on their own in the jungle after a plane crash. President Gustvao Petro on Monday described the search as an example of how Western technologies and traditional knowledge of Indigenous people can work together in the “preservation of life.” Some 70 Indigenous people worked with more than 150 soldiers to look for the children in difficult terrain in the Amazon, using helicopters and GPS devices but also drawing inspiration from traditional knowledge of the jungle. The children, aged 1 to 13, were found June 9 by four volunteers from the Muruy people.