TWO Brazilian indigenous boys have been found after surviving 25 days lost in the Amazon rainforest, where they ate fruit and drank rainwater to stay alive, said officials yesterday.

Brothers Glauco, 7, and Gleison, 9, were found on Tuesday, 35km from the spot where they went missing, famished and dehydrated but otherwise fine.

“They are suffering from malnutrition and severe dehydration, but gaining weight, with no risk to their lives,” said Januario Carneiro da Cunha Neto, an indigenous health official in the northern city of Manaus.

The boys, members of the Indigenous Mura group, went missing on February 18, when they left their village in the rural county of Manicore in Amazonas and entered the dense rainforest to hunt for birds.

“They survived on rainwater, lake water and sorva”, a local fruit rich in carbohydrates and fats, said Carneiro.

The authorities had given up the search for the boys. But local indigenous residents kept looking for them, until a family friend who was out gathering wood found them by chance one day, he added.

He said the older boy had carried the younger one on his back when he grew too weak to walk.

The boys were taken to a hospital in Manaus and are being treated for some cuts and infections. Fortunately, they avoided any run-ins with snakes or other wildlife. – AFP, March 19, 2022.