A four-year-old boy has remarkably survived spending six days lost in the African wilderness surrounded by hyenas and predators.
The unnamed boy got separated from his brothers during a crazy storm as they were heading home from a day of herding livestock, pilot Roan Carr-Hartley said.
Mr Carr-Hartley works for the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an orphan elephant rescue and wildlife rehabilitation program based in Tsavo, and miraculously found the boy.
The child had somehow managed to wander over 11 miles from his home in Asa, which is close to the edge of the Tsavo East wildlife preserve in Kenya and Asa’s local chief had contacted the Wildlife Trust to ask if they could use their aircraft for the search.
Mr Carr Hartley told Newsweek: "A search party went out looking but couldn't find him, and began to follow tracks. They did an amazing job tracking him for countless days without food.
"It was an unforgiving environment for any person to be alone, let alone a child so young."
The pilot explained in a blog post he had no way of communicating with them while he was in the air and had organised for the search party to walk with a "white cloth tied to a long stick", which would make it easier to find them in the dense bush.
He scanned the area for four hours and found nothing but an empty fuel tank and various animals, including hyenas and jackals.
He continued: “By the time I was overhead, a search party of 70 men were fanning through the wild scrubland in search of the little boy. I had a rough direction of the search party’s location given to me by the Chief - the party had tracked the boy to an area 7 kilometres from his village, but then the tracks started to become unreadable."
He said it was an "unforgiving environment" for any person to be alone, let alone a child so young. He said there have been times when he hasn’t been able to locate a particular elephant for up to a week, let alone a four-year-old child.
Mr Carr Hartley wrote: "Because of heavy rains, there was no shortage of surface water. This at least gave me some peace of mind that the boy would be able to find water”.
Suddenly, Mr Carr-Hartley saw a "tiny figure" below the aircraft which was surrounded by trees.
He said he could not believe his eyes: "But there he was, a tiny boy surrounded by endless wilderness."
The young boy was suffering from malnutrition and was covered in insect bites as well as scratches from thorn bushes. His feet were blistered and riddled with thorns and cuts, but everyone was just thrilled he was found alive.
The village elders gifted the pilot a young billy goat as thanks for finding their little boy. This is a highly esteemed gift, as billy goats from this area are highly sought after.
