On Friday, Colombian media reported the siblings, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1, who were passengers of the Cessna 206 plane that crashed in May, were found alive by soldiers and members of indigenous tribes. The Tiempo newspaper reported, citing military sources, the children were dehydrated and had suffered from insect bites.
"After an initial check of girl Lesly and her three younger brothers, we found that they are … in acceptable clinical condition, despite the situation experienced in the last 40 days," Arango was quoted as saying by Colombian news agency on Saturday.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his wife visited the children in the hospital, according to the president's office.
A Cessna 206 aircraft that was flying from Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare in the department of Caqueta in the south of the country reported an engine failure and sounded the alarm on May 1. It was discovered after more than 370 hours of searching. The pilot's body was on board, but the six passengers, four of them minors, were not in the cabin or in the vicinity of the plane. Tiempo reported that the two bodies found later belonged to co-pilot Herman Mendoza and passenger Magdalena Mukutui, mother of the four children.