Two brothers who went missing in the Amazon rainforest four weeks ago have been found alive.
Siblings Glaucon and Gleison - aged seven and nine respectively - were found 27 days after they disappeared from their indigenous reserve in the municipality of Manicoré, in Amazonas state, Brazil.
The children were trying to catch birds at the time of their disappearance on 18 February, and after hundreds of residents spent weeks searching, hope of finding them had faded, with emergency services calling off the search on 24 February.
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However, by chance, a tree cutter stumbled upon them on Tuesday (15 March), 6 km (3.7 miles) from the village of Palmeira in the Lago Capanã protected land reserve, where they live with their parents.
The brothers were initially taken to hospital in Manicoré, before being transferred by helicopter yesterday (17 March) to the better-equipped medical facility in the state capital, Manaus.
When they were discovered, they were severely malnourished with skin abrasions. They are now in a serious but stable condition and are expected to make a full recovery.
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Paediatrician Eugenio Tavares told local media: "Their condition is serious but stable. They are able to eat orally, urinate well, and their pulse is also normal.
"We will transition their diet, now it's liquid, then it will be in paste form.
"They need to gain at least 50 percent of the weight they lost during this whole period to be able to return to Manicoré.
"But there is no certain forecast for this to happen, until then we will continue to monitor them."
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It has since transpired that the boys and survived on nothing but rainwater water and berries of the Couma utilis flowering plant, which is known locally as 'sorva'.
The boys' mum, farmer Rosinete da Silva Carvalho, told local media yesterday: "I asked, 'My son, didn't you eat anything?'
"He told me, 'We ate sorva, mum'. The boys always ate sorva because my oldest son would take it when he went hunting and whenever I saw it I took them a bag. So they were used to sorva.
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"When the youngest couldn't walk anymore, they remained close by and drank water from a stream and rainwater."
Topics: World News
Jake Massey