JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground
HTML
<div id="footer"><flow:fileref> This is a flow:fileref tag </flow:fileref></div>
<br>
<br>
elements finded with :eq(0) : <span id="result1">0</span>
<br>
elements finded without :eq(0) : <span id="result2">0</span>
JavaScript
$("#result1").text( $("div#footer>flow\\:fileref:eq(0)").length );
$("#result2").text( $("div#footer>flow\\:fileref").length );