Four children have been found alive – five weeks after the plane they were travelling in crashed into thick jungle.

They were rescued by the Colombian military, not far from where the Cessna 206 crashed. Three adults on board, including the pilot, lost their lives.

Exhaustive searches had been under way for the children – who are siblings aged 13, nine and four, with the youngest just 11 months old.

Officials had regularly expressed confidence they were still alive after discovering the discarded fruit that the youngsters had eaten to survive.

Rescuers had also uncovered improvised shelters made with jungle vegetation during efforts to follow their tracks.

Colombian President Gustav Petro said: “A joy for the whole country! The four children who were lost… in the Colombian jungle appeared alive.”

Two weeks after their disappearance, Mr Petro was forced to apologise after incorrectly announcing that they had been found safe and well.

The youngsters have been sent to the capital of Bogota to be checked by doctors – and footage showed a helicopter using lines to pull them up because it could not land in the dense rainforest.

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Meanwhile, the military tweeted pictures showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers held a bottle to the smallest child’s lips.

The group of four children were travelling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed.

They are members of the Huitoto people, and officials said the oldest children in the group had some knowledge of how to survive in the rainforest.

“The jungle saved them,” Mr Petro said. “They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.”