Tragedy in Morocco: Heroic rescue bid in vain as boy, 5, dies after four days in well
5 February 2022, 13:58 | Updated: 5 February 2022, 23:45
A five-year-old boy has died after being trapped in a deep well in Morocco for four days.
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Footage from the scene in northern Morocco earlier on Saturday evening showed rescue workers emerging from a tunnel huddled around what is thought to have been carrying the boy, called Rayan.
In a statement, Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the parents of Rayan.
The bid to retrieve him entered the fourth day on Saturday and crews had to call in topographical engineering amid fears that soil around the well could collapse on him.
They sent oxygen and water down the 105ft pit he fell into, near Ighran village in the north of the country.
The hole was too narrow for rescuers to get to him safely so a horizontal tunnel was dug from a parallel ditch they made to save him. A camera monitored the boy’s wellbeing throughout the effort.
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Hundreds of villagers joined his distressed parents in watching the rescue effort, some cheering on.
His father told le360, a news website, on Wednesday: "In that one moment I took my eyes off him, the little one fell into the well. I haven't slept a wink.”
Rayan's mother reportedly told Morrocan media: "The whole family went out to look for him.
“Then we realised that he'd fallen down the well. I'm still keeping up hope that we'll get him out alive."
His plight has captivated the world, and Moroccans have used the #SaveRayan hashtag to draw attention to it.
