Colombia plane crash: Four children found alive in Amazon after 40 days

Four children have been found alive after surviving a plane crash and spending weeks fending for themselves in Colombia's Amazon jungle.

Colombia's president said the rescue of the siblings, aged 13, nine, four, and one, was "a joy for the whole country", BBC reports.

The children's mother and two pilots were killed when their light aircraft crashed in the jungle on May 1.

President Gustavo Petro said finding the group was a "magical day", adding: "They were alone, they themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history.

"These children are today the children of peace and the children of Colombia."

Mr Petro shared a photograph of several members of the military and Indigenous community caring for the siblings, who had been missing for 40 days. One of the rescuers held a bottle up to the mouth of the smallest child, while another fed one of the other children from a mug with a spoon.

A video shared by Colombia's ministry of defence showed the children being air-lifted into a helicopter in the dark above the tall trees of the jungle.

Mr Petro said the siblings were receiving medical attention - and that he had spoken to their grandfather, who told him "the mother jungle returned them".

The children have been flown to the nation's capital Bogota, where ambulances have taken them to hospital for further medical treatment.

The Cessna 206 aircraft the children and their mother had been travelling on before the crash was flying from Araracuara, in Amazonas province, to San José del Guaviare, when it issued a mayday alert due to engine failure.

The bodies of the three adults were found at the crash site by the army, but it appeared that the children had escaped the wreckage and wandered into the rainforest to find help.