Image source, Reuters Image caption,

Colombian soldiers tend to the four children shortly after they were found

By Aoife Walsh

BBC News

The mother of four children rescued after 40 days in the Amazon jungle was alive for four days after their plane crashed.

Magdalena Mucutuy told her children to leave and find help as she lay dying.

Speaking to reporters, the children's father, Manuel Ranoque, said his eldest daughter told him their mother urged them to "get out" and save themselves.

The siblings, aged 13, nine, five, and one, were rescued and airlifted out of the jungle on Friday.

They were moved to a military hospital in the nation's capital Bogota.

"The one thing that [13-year-old Lesly] has cleared up for me is that, in fact, her mother was alive for four days," Mr Ranoque told reporters outside the hospital.

"Before she died, their mum 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," he said.