Colombian authorities have found three children and an infant alive 17 days after the small plane they were carrying with three adults crashed in the jungle in the south of the country, President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday, DPA reported.

Colombian soldiers use sniffer dogs to search for four missing children in the jungle after a small plane crashed, killing three adultsPhoto: Handout / AFP / Profimedia

“After intensive search efforts by our military, we found alive four children who disappeared after the plane crash in Guaviare. Joy for the country,” Petro wrote on Twitter, Agerpres notes.

Colombian armed forces found four minors on Wednesday – three of them aged 13, 9 and 4, respectively, and an 11-month-old baby – after discovering a makeshift shelter built of sticks and branches in the jungle.

Colombian authorities have mobilized more than 100 soldiers, search dogs and members of local indigenous communities to find the children who were on board the Cessna C206 when it crashed in the Amazon jungle in the southern department of Caqueta on May 1. .

Three adults on board died during the plane crash.