Bogotá (AFP) – “I'm hungry” and “my mom is dead” were the first words uttered by the four children missing for 40 days in the Colombian jungle when they were found, members of the rescue group said in a televised interview Sunday.

After wandering alone for more than a month, the Huitoto Indigenous children — ages 13, nine, five, and one — were rescued and airlifted out of the Amazon on Friday, and were recovering two days later in a military hospital in the capital Bogota.

Interviewed Sunday on public broadcast channel RTVC, members of the initial group to find the kids, themselves members of the Indigenous population, recounted the first moments after meeting the children.

“The eldest daughter, Lesly, with the little one in her arms, ran towards me. Lesly said: 'I'm hungry,'” said Nicolas Ordonez Gomes, one of the search and rescue crew.

“One of the two boys was lying down. He got up and said to me: 'My mom is dead.'”

“We immediately followed up with positive words, saying that we were friends, that we were sent by the family, the father, the uncle. That we were family!” Ordonez Gomes added.

In a video released Sunday which showed the children soon after they were found, the kids seemed to be emaciated from their time spent in the wilderness.

Their rescuers are seen singing, smoking tobacco — a plant considered sacred among many jungle residents — and celebrating.

The four children had been lost in the jungle since May 1, when the Cessna 206 in which they were traveling crashed.

The pilot had reported engine problems only minutes after taking off from a deep Amazon area known as Araracuara on the 350-kilometer (217-mile) journey to the town of San Jose del Guaviare.