‘WITHOUT MERCY’

Colombian Children Found in Amazon Now Under Tense Custody Battle

The kids’ maternal grandfather accused their dad of abusing the children “without mercy” and forcing them to hide in the forest out of fear of his beatings.

The family members of the four missing Colombia children who were miraculously found alive last week after 40 days of fending for themselves in the Amazon rainforest are now engaged in a custody war. A Colombian Institute of Family Welfare official told a local radio station that a caseworker has been assigned to the kids as their maternal grandparents fight father Manuel Ranoque in a bid for guardianship. Grandpa Narciso Mucutuy has accused Ranoque of beating his children and driving them to hide in the forest out of fear of the attacks. Mucutuy claims Ranoque once “hit my daughter with a machete.” “Lesly hid in the forest with her siblings for three days to protect them from the beatings when [Ranoque] arrived home with alcohol breath and started hitting them without mercy,” Mucutuy told reporters. The Independent reported that Ranoque acknowledged there were family troubles but said they were not “gossip for the world.” He admitted to previously getting into verbal, and sometimes physical, altercations with his wife, who died in the plane crash the kids survived. The welfare agency is investigating the matter and has not ruled out the alleged domestic abuse.