The two young brothers who were found after 27 days alone in the Amazon rainforest survived off berries and rainwater.
Siblings Glaucon and Gleison, aged 7 and 9 respectively, were found alive following their disappearance the previous month in the Amazon jungle.
They were transferred by plane to a hospital in Manaus, the capital city of the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, yesterday morning (Thursday, 17th March).
Paediatrician Eugenio Tavares was quoted in local media as saying: “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 per cent of the weight they lost during this whole period to be able to return to Manicore. But there is no certain forecast for this to happen, until then we will continue to monitor them.”
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The youngsters went missing from their indigenous reserve in the municipality of Manicore, also in Amazonas, when they went hunting birds, on 18th February.
They were found severely malnourished and with abrasions on their skin, following an extensive search, on 15th March.
They were found in an area of difficult access, 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the spot where they went missing, by a man cutting wood, after the Fire Department had already called off the search.
They were initially taken to hospital in Manicore before being transferred to the better-equipped medical facility in the state capital.
And now it has been revealed that the boys survived their ordeal by eating the berries of the Couma utilis flowering plant, which are called ‘sorva’ locally, and by drinking water from a stream and rainwater.
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.
“When the youngest couldn’t walk anymore, they remained close by and drank water from a stream and rainwater.”
The boys’ recovery continues.
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Story By: William McGee, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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