A plane crashed into the Amazon. Did four children survive?

For more than two weeks, search and rescue teams in Colombia have been searching the Amazon rainforest for four children who were aboard a plane that crashed on May 1. The bodies of the three adults on board were found in the wreckage, but there was no sign of the children.

Then Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, posted on Twitter on Wednesday night what seemed like remarkable news: the country’s armed forces had found the four children alive. “A joy for our country,” he said.

But maybe he spoke too soon. Soon, local news reports cited military sources as saying the armed forces had not contacted the children, and the national child welfare agency, Colombia’s Institute for Family Welfare, known by its Spanish initials ICBF, subsequently confirmed that in a statement.

“Intelligence has been received from the area to ensure contact has been made with the four boys and girls,” the agency said late wednesday. “However, the armed forces have not yet been able to establish official contact due to adverse weather conditions and difficult terrain.”

By Thursday morning, Mr. Petro had deleted his tweet, but posted another one later tweet try to explain his actions.

“I have decided to delete the tweet because the information from the ICBF could not be confirmed. I am sorry for what happened,” he wrote. “The armed forces and indigenous communities will continue their tireless quest to bring the country the news it is waiting for. At this point there is no priority other than continuing to search until they are found. The life of the children is the most important thing.”

Adding to the confusion, Astrid Cáceres, director of the child welfare office, said in an interview that same morning with local news media that the children were in fact “fine” and in the care of an Indigenous community who had assisted in the search. “The level of precision in the details really encourages us,” Ms Cáceres said of the initial report that the children had been found. “We’re waiting to make contact.”

The conflicting information left the nation baffled at the fate of the four Indigenous children – ages 13, 9 and 4 years old and 11 months old – who have been at the center of an intense jungle search since the Cessna plane in which they traveled crashed into the rainforest.

A spokesperson for the child welfare agency told The New York Times on Thursday that Ms. Cáceres and the head of the Civil Aviation Authority traveled to the remote area to investigate.

The children, members of the indigenous Huitoto community, traveled with their mother and an indigenous leader from the small Amazonian community of Araracuara, Colombia, to San José del Guaviare, a small town in central Colombia along the Guaviare River. The pilot reported an engine failure and declared an emergency before disappearing from radar at around 07:30 on 1 May.

The Colombian Air Force and military soon deployed search and rescue aircraft and helicopters, as well as land and river teams. Indigenous communities in the region also joined the effort.

Using a loudspeaker that produces sound loud enough to be heard within a radius of about a mile, they played a recording made by the children’s grandmother in Huitoto, their native language.

This is reported by a Colombian news outlet. El Tiempothe four children and their mother were traveling to meet their father, who had fled the area after threats from armed insurgents.