June 13, 2023, 3:23 PM
June 13, 2023, 3:23 PM
Since he was a puppy, he lived and trained with the military to rescue people. wilson the dog protagonist of the discovery of the four children in the Colombian jungle, he got lost during the search and now floods social networks with messages of affection.
#VamosPorWilson, #FaltaUno, #WilsonHeroeNacional are some of the numerals that multiply in virtual conversations, when the tension over the search for the indigenous brothers turned into relief after their amazing rescue on Friday.
Lesly (13 years old), Soleiny, (9) Tien Noriel (5) and Cristin (1) are recovering in a military hospital from Bogotá after 40 days of hardship in the Amazon jungle and a plane crash on May 1 in which they were the only survivors.
But “the search is not over,” insists the Army. In the southern departments of Guaviare and Caquetá, more than 70 soldiers are working tirelessly to locate Wilson, a six-year-old Belgian Malinois shepherd who got lost two weeks ago in thick vegetation while looking for his brothers.
“Let’s go for Wilson, we’re going to bring him”, General Pedro Sánchez, head of the children’s rescue operation, said Tuesday in a bulletin.
These types of dogs are trained in pairs, where they are assigned a single military “guide” who will accompany them throughout their lives in different operations. Cristian David Lara, Wilson’s duo, remains in the jungle to try to find his whereabouts.
“He did not want to leave the area until he found his puppy, these couples create a bond of a lifetime,” an Army official told the newspaper El Espectador.
– Wilson’s findings –
When a military crew found the plane destroyed, three adults dead, but none of the children who were passengers, a spectacular search operation began to find the Huitoto brothers since mid-May.
More than a hundred soldiers and indigenous people, accompanied by sniffer dogs, they were deployed in a region where jaguars, venomous snakes and other dangerous predators inhabit.
Wilson found baby Cristin’s bottle among the thick vegetation and almost 4 kilometers away from the accident site. Rescuers also found bitten fruit, diapers, makeshift shelters, scissors and footprints. Indications that maintained the hope of the troop in finding them alive.
But two weeks ago “due to the complexity of the terrain, the humidity and the adverse weather conditions (Wilson) would have become disoriented”, reported the Army in a bulletin.
However, several clues point to the fact that the dog could have been the first to find the children, as the animal’s footprints appear to indicate along with those of the minors.
“Wilson is a dog, but he is our command. I would say that he was the first to find the children,” Sánchez said Tuesday.
In the midst of the prolonged Colombian conflict, more than 17,000 dogs have been trained by the Army in different specialties: detection of substances and explosives, demining, search and rescue of people, among other tasks.
“Make every effort to make Wilson the puppy appear, please!” Nora Villa, a 55-year-old housewife, told AFP.
On June 8, one day before the discovery of the children, the Army reported that Wilson had been lost in the jungle.
“A fallen comrade is never abandoned in the field of combat. #OperaciónEsperanza advances in the search for our canine Wilson, who, tracking and in his eagerness to find the children, distances himself from the troops and gets lost,” said the institution on Twitter.
After the euphoria of the rescue of minors, hundreds of users on social networks They asked not to forget the dog with nice messages, some making use of other animals such as cats that carried posters in their mouths in honor of Wilson.
Lesly and Soleiny, the older sisters, they made a drawing in which a dog is seen in the middle of trees, next to a river and has the name “Wilson” written in black. Another indication that feeds the hypothesis that the minors were with the animal.
Astrid Cáceres, director of the state entity that watches over the rights of children, assured on Saturday that minors talk about a dog.
Lesly “told us (…) about the puppy that was lost, that they don’t know where it was and that he accompanied them for a while,” said the official.
In addition to hostile vegetation and wild animals, In the Amazon there is a presence of rebels who departed from the peace agreement between the FARC guerrillas and the government in 2016.
According to General Sánchez, Wilson He did not have a GPS to prevent “the enemy” from locating him in the area.
