A hundred soldiers with sniffer dogs and local Indigenous people are searching through the Colombian Amazon in a desperate bid to find four children missing since an airplane crash almost three weeks ago.

Three adults, including the pilot and the children’s mother died in the crash but rescuers believe an 11-month-old baby and its siblings aged four, nine and 13 survived and are now wandering through the dense forest.

President Gustavo Petro lifted and then crushed the nation’s hopes when he announced on Wednesday that all four had been found alive and well, only to retract that a day later.

Signs of life have been found, including a baby’s bottle, a footprint and an improvised shelter, but the mystery of the missing children grows by the hour.

[Jeez. You forget things like this can still happen, that there are still wild places in the world. ~ Beege]