Indigenous brothers aged 7 and 9 survive after 25 days lost in the Amazon rainforest

Two indigenous brothers aged 7 and 9 were found after spending 25 days lost in the jungle in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, and are recovering in a hospital from the severe malnutrition they suffered after feeding only on wild fruits.

The children, Glaucon and Gleison, aged 7 and 9 respectively, were found on Tuesday by a close relative “35 km from the place where they disappeared, with severe malnutrition and dehydration, and are now gaining weight, without risk of death,” Januário Carneiro da Cunha Neto, coordinator of the Health District, informed AFP on Friday. Indigenous Special (DSEI), from Manaus, the state capital.

The brothers, ethnic Mura, had been missing since February 18, when they went to hunt birds in the thick vegetation from the community where they live, in a rural area of the municipality of Manicoré, some 330 km from Manaus.

During the time they stayed in the jungle, they “only drank rainwater and lakes, and fed on sorva”, a fruit from the region high in carbohydrates and fats, Carneiro da Cunha Neto explained.

Rosinete da Silva Carvalho, mother of the children and their ten siblings, told the Rede Amazonica network that “they were used to eating sorva, because my oldest son always brought a bag for them when he went hunting.”

“That allowed them to survive,” explained the coordinator, who spoke with the family at the hospital in Manaus, where the brothers also recover from skin injuries and some infections under constant supervision, but without needing to be admitted to the intensive care unit.

Images released by local media show the extremely skinny children after the rescue, when they were taken to a hospital in Manaus.

After almost a month, their discovery was accidental, given that formal search by the fire brigade had ceased a week after the disappearance, and only by indigenous people in the area continued. “An acquaintance of the family who went to collect wood ended up finding the children by chance,” said the DSEI coordinator.

During the long days when they tried unsuccessfully to find their way back home, the eldest of the children, Gleison, took care of his younger brother, carrying him on his back when he was overcome by fatigue, exacerbated by the lack of food and water, commented Carneiro da Cunha Neto.

In addition to that risk, he added, children walked tens of kilometers in that jungle area exposed to wild animals, such as cobras.

The episode is reminiscent of the one experienced in early 2021 by a pilot Antonio Sena who after his plane crashed spent 38 days lost in the Brazilian Amazon and survived.

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