The Colombian Army has called off the search for the hero dog that helped locate four children lost for 40 days in the Amazon rainforest.

Wilson, a Belgian Shepherd, helped locate Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and Cristin Neryman, one, in the Guaviare rainforest following an aircraft crash but went missing himself.

In a tragic turn of events, the army has said that it was ‘unlikely’ to find Wilson after the desperate search for him began on June 9.

After their rescue, the children told of how Wilson had been with them before they were found by the Army and indigenous volunteers. They had also drawn heartfelt pictures of the hero pup.

Special Forces commander General Pedro Sanchez said in Bogota on Monday: ‘Wilson is one of our commandos. We have done absolutely everything within our reach, we have spared no efforts to find him, but we are aware that it is practically unlikely that we can find him.’

The tribute, which was attended by President Gustavo Petro, was part of an award ceremony for Wilson’s mother, Drugia.

General Sanchez told those present: ‘Wilson will be remembered in our hearts and in the soul of the Colombian people, as we will do with the other canines and with our soldiers and police officers who have sacrificed their lives.’

Wilson was the strongest puppy of five born to Drugia and was raised among military personnel. He trained for 14 months at the School of Military Engineers.

He was recruited to help in the search for the four missing children.

‘He was the dog we were looking for: strong, not afraid, very curious,’ Edgar Fontecha, instructor at the canine training centre, said according to El Espectador. 

‘He was the true hero because he beat the communications between the jungle and pulled his guide towards the wreckage of the aircraft’, the military said. 

‘It is said that the dog broke the rope that tied him to Lara (his guide) and started to do his thing, to follow the trail of the minors until he was lost,’ Mr Fontecha added. 

On May 28, Lesley’s footprint was found among other smaller ones. there was also a dog paw print. Ten days later it was confirmed that the four children had been found. 

The six-year-old pooch’s disappearance was reported on June 8, a day before the children were found.

The Army believes he got lost after the area’s hostile conditions – including humidity and dense foliage limiting visibility to 20 metres – disoriented him.

Lenin Ospina, a retired military officer who worked with search and rescue animals, told Blu Radio that Wilson could be ‘in an emotional condition of psychological block’ and he might not be responding to people’s calls.

He was not wearing a tracker. However, even if he had been, unfavourable weather conditions may have hindered it from functioning properly, reports said.

The order to search for Wilson was given after the children were rescued.

Ahead of the decision to call off the search, Armed Forces commander General Helder Giraldo said: ‘A fallen comrade is never abandoned on the battlefield.

‘Operation Esperanza continues to advance in the search for our canine Wilson, who, while tracking and in his eagerness to find the children, moves away from the troops and gets lost.’

More than 70 members of the Army were involved in the search for the missing dog.

Their strategies included bringing in two females in heat in a bid to attract him, and placing food at points deemed strategic.

But this week officials have said men used for the rescue mission are needed elsewhere in the country.

‘We have more responsibilities in other areas of the country, our men are also exposed to jungle diseases and the risks that exist there,’ says General Pedro Sánchez. 

This week a video of a dog that looks very similar to the Belgian Shepherd has been shared on social media, sparking hope that Wilson is still alive and well. 

It was spotted in La Plata in Hulia, which is 125 miles (200km) from where the children were found. 

‘From La Plata (Huila) they send a video and a photo where a puppy very similar to Wilson can be seen wandering in the rural area of ​​the municipality. 

‘We are talking about a considerable distance, close to 200 km. It is important to verify this information, the National Army of Colombia and the Colombian Military Forces,’ a social media user said. 

The tragic first words spoken by children who survived 40 days in the Colombian jungle have been revealed by their rescuers.

After wandering alone for more than a month, the Huitoto Indigenous children – ages 13, nine, five, and one – were rescued and airlifted out of the Amazon on Friday, and were recovering two days later in a military hospital in the capital Bogota.

In a televised interview on Sunday, members of the rescue group – themselves members of the Indigenous population – recounted the first moments after meeting the children.

They described how the eldest child ran towards them holding a baby when she saw them coming.

‘I’m hungry’ and ‘my mom is dead,’ the rescuers say they were told.

‘The eldest daughter, Lesly, with the little one in her arms, ran towards me. Lesly said, “I’m hungry,”‘ Nicolas Ordonez Gomes, one of the search and rescue crew, told public broadcast channel RTVC.

‘One of the two boys was lying down. He got up and said to me, “My mom is dead.”‘

‘We immediately followed up with positive words, saying that we were friends, that we were sent by the family, the father, the uncle. That we were family,’ Ordonez Gomes added.

In a video released Sunday which showed the children soon after they were found, the kids seemed to be emaciated from their time spent in the wilderness.

Their rescuers are seen singing, smoking tobacco – a plant considered sacred among many jungle residents – and celebrating.

The four children had been lost in the jungle since May 1, when the Cessna 206 in which they were traveling crashed.

The pilot had reported engine problems only minutes after taking off from a deep Amazon area known as Araracuara on the 217-mile journey to the town of San Jose del Guaviare.

The bodies of the pilot, the children’s mother and another adult were all found at the crash site, where the plane sat almost vertical in the trees.

But when the wreckage of the plane was found after weeks of hunting not only were the children not found dead alongside the adults, there was part-eaten fruit that suggested they had all survived.

That sparked a huge hunt across miles of dense and remote Amazon rainforest, culminating in their rescue of Friday, June 9. 

The children’s father, speaking to the press on Sunday outside the hospital, said that his wife had been severely injured in the May 1 crash, but that she did not die until four days later, her children beside her.

‘The one thing that (13-year-old Lesly) has cleared up for me is that, in fact, her mother was alive for four days,’ Manuel Miller Ranoque told reporters.

‘Before she died, their mom told them something like, “You guys get out of here. You guys are going to see the kind of man your dad is, and he’s going to show you the same kind of great love that I have shown you.”‘

Magdalena Mucutuy, the children’s mother, was an Indigenous leader.

It was in part down to the local knowledge of the children and Indigenous adults involved in the search alongside Colombian troops that the youths were ultimately found alive despite the threats of jaguars and snakes, and relentless downpours which may have prevented them from hearing possible calls from search parties.

‘The survival of the children is a sign of the knowledge and relationship with the natural environment that is taught starting in the mother’s womb,’ according to the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Colombia.

The children ate seeds, fruits, roots and plants that they identified as edible from their upbringing in the Amazon region, Luis Acosta of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, told AFP news agency.

Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, who visited them in the hospital with President Gustavo Petro, said they were recovering but could not yet eat solid food.

Lesly Jacombaire Mucutuy, Soleiny Jacombaire Mucutuy, nine, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, four, and one-year-old Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy remain in a military hospital in Bogota after their astonishing ordeal. 

The youngest two children, now five and one, spent their birthdays in the jungle, as Lesly, the oldest at just 13, guided them through the ordeal.

‘It is thanks to her, her courage and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle,’ Velasquez said.

General Pedro Sanchez, who led the search operation, credited Indigenous people involved in the rescue effort with finding the children.

‘We found the children: miracle, miracle, miracle,’ he told reporters.

Army chief Helder Giraldo said rescuers had covered more than 1,650 miles to locate the children.

‘Something that seemed impossible was achieved,’ Giraldo said on Twitter.

In addition to the jaguars, snakes and other predators, the area is also home to armed drug smuggling groups.

Petro touted the success as a ‘meeting of Indigenous and military knowledge’ that had demonstrated a ‘different path towards a new Colombia’.

On Sunday, the father of two victims and stepfather to the others, expressed frustration with hospital authorities as they prevented him from seeing two while they recovered.

He came out from the hospital again in the afternoon and was highly emotional when he told DailyMail.com: ‘I was so excited the moment I saw my children.’

He went on to say to reporters: ‘You have got to understand I can’t speak about the situation inside the hospital because it’s very sensitive… but I can say they are doing way better.’

And he put their survival down to their upbringing, saying: ‘ ‘The kids are possessed by nature.’

But he revealed his anger at authorities who he says are not allowing him to see the two older children.

‘This is not a game,’ he said. ‘They are fine. I cannot talk to the [two older] children, I cannot tell you anything about them until the father, the creator [apparently referring to God] allows me to…

‘You will never understand our world. We are indigenous people. We cannot lose time getting an education, we have shown our skills, what we are capable of, we found the airplane, we found the kids, what else do you want?

‘Now may God continue to protect them.’

In an emotional state, he continued: ‘I have only been able to see my two little kids, because the Government will not allow me to see my other two daughters. I don’t know why I can’t see them.

‘They [the authorities] haven’t completely understood that I am coming from 40 days in the jungle, they think I’m coming from a bar or from the streets.’

He went on: ‘I want to thank the military hospital, the kids are in good hands and I think after a month I will have my kids with me, that is my dream.

‘They [the authorities] don’t understand I am their father. The government has taken this as a joke to step over me.

‘I am the father. I went to look for them, I searched for them and now that I brought them back, now I cannot see them. How is that possible? And the other search teams, the other people, can see them.

‘They are allowed to see them, to take pictures with them. And us, my colleagues that have come from suffering, they haven’t been given any medical attention. I fought 40 days on my knees in the jungle.

‘I have only seen the two older children in photos. And that worries me.

‘I call upon the nation to please respect that I am the dad. They [the older children] have got to talk to me first. How come they are talking to people who when I was in the jungle didn’t even send a glass of water while I was dying of hunger and thirst in the jungle?

‘I never had any support and now the kids are here there are people trying to make money out of this.’

DailyMail.com asked about the future of his children and he replied: ‘The children have to have a decent place to live, access to education and many big things are coming for my children.’

The father’s anger comes amid sources indicating to DailyMail.com the Colombian authorities want to have influence over the future upbringing of at least the two older children. 

Ranoque, who fled his area after being threatened by FARC guerrillas, said the two older children were being brainwashed by the group into believing that he was abusing them.

But he said Sunday: ‘I am not their biological father, but they were trying to tell them I was abusing them. Lesly shut their mouths, saying I am their father.’

Their grandmother, whose voice was played from aircraft above the jungle during the search to reassure the youngsters they were being looked for, told reporters: ‘I never lost hope, I was always supporting the search. I feel very happy, I thank President Petro and my “countrymen” who went through so many difficulties.’

After the siblings were found alive army radios could be heard saying: ‘Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle’ – the army code for a child found alive and repeated four times to reflect all four children.

Officials are crediting Lesly for her efforts to help save her siblings, and family members said a survival game they played helped prepare them for the ordeal. 

Lesly, the eldest, ‘knew what fruits she can’t eat because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby,’ aunt Damarys Mucutuy told the Caracol news network.

‘She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume,’ Ms Valencia said.

‘They were raised by their grandmother,’ said John Moreno, a leader of the Guanano group in Vaupes, in the southeastern part of Colombia where the children were raised. ‘They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive.’

Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane, which was wedged vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.

But the children remained missing.

Some 200 soldiers and indigenous people with knowledge of the terrain have been combing a dense jungle area of some 320 sq km (124 sq mi) – about double the size of Washington, DC.

The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.

The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military has dropped food parcels and bottled water for the children.

Powerful searchlights were shone into the area ‘so that the minors can approach us’, search team member Colonel Fausto Avellaneda told the Noticias Caracol TV show.

Huitoto children learn hunting, fishing and gathering, and the kids’ grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, had said the children are well acquainted with the jungle.

At one point the search team believed it had come to within 100m (300ft) of them, but storms, thick vegetation and marshy terrain prevented them from reaching them.

Members of the indigenous community held traditional ceremonies ‘speaking to the jungle’ and asking it to give up the children.

But the jungle began giving up tantalizing clues that hopes were not lost for the youngsters. In photographs released by the military, scissors, shoes, and hair ties could be seen among branches on the jungle floor.

A baby’s drinking bottle and half-eaten pieces of fruit had been spotted before the shelter’s discovery.

Then nearly two weeks ago, a footprint was found on the muddy jungle floor. Army officials believed it to belong to 13-year-old Lesly.

Leaders from the Huitoto indigenous group expressed hope that the children’s knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills should give them better odds of being found alive.

Boxes of food were dropped to the jungle floor to help sustain the children. And yesterday the efforts paid off when one of the rescue dogs who had been on their scent led soldiers to the group, the President confirmed. 

They had been following footprints left on the muddy floor.

‘The jungle saved them,’ Petro said. ‘They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.’

Four indigenous children who went missing for six weeks in the Colombian Amazon jungle after a plane crash have reportedly been found alive. 

The brothers, aged one, four, nine and 13, had been travelling in a light aircraft on May 1 when the plane is believed to have failed. 

The crash killed the children’s mother Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, as well as the pilot and an indigenous leader. 

There were no signs of the youngsters when the aircraft’s wreckage was recovered by the Colombian military – igniting a massive search operation in the southeast of the country to find them.

Now the children have been found alive, according to military sources quoted by the Columbian press. 

They are said to be dehydrated and have insect bites, but are otherwise in good condition, according to BNO News. 

Sources from the Military Forces allegedly confirmed to news site EL TIEMPO that the children lost since May 1 have all survived. 

President of Colombia Gustavo Petro also shared the good news on Twitter, writing a message which translates to: ‘A joy for the whole country! 

‘The 4 children who were lost 40 days ago in the Colombian jungle appeared alive.’

Satellite images previously revealed a path the children took from the plane wreck, and rescuers came across some of their belongings – a pair of shoes and a nappy – as well as a makeshift shelter and a half-eaten fruit.  

Their reported discovery comes after Colombia’s president came under fire when he tweeted that the children had been found but later deleted it, saying the information could not be confirmed.

Leaders from the Huitoto indigenous group expressed hope that the children’s knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills should give them better odds of being found alive.

On the morning of May 1, a Cessna 206 airplane left a jungle area known as Araracuara heading for the town of San Jose del Guaviare in the Colombian Amazon.

Minutes after starting the 350km (217-mile) journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars.

Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane, which was wedged vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.

But the children – Lesly, 13, Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and baby Cristin – were missing.

Members of the indigenous community held traditional ceremonies ‘speaking to the jungle’ and asking it to give up the children, according to the government.