Rescuers are still fighting against time on Friday to try to save a five-year-old boy who is stuck in a deep well in a village in northern Morocco.
Engaged in an increasingly urgent race against time, Moroccan rescuers worked all night from Friday to Saturday to try to save little Rayan, a five-year-old child who fell into a deep well five days ago, including fate moves the kingdom and far beyond.
But the drilling work continues very slowly in this village in a poor region of northern Morocco. The last two meters to reach the boy at the bottom of the 32-meter hole are the most difficult because of the risk of rockslides. No information has filtered on the fate of little Rayan, but the more the hours go by, the more the doubt settles on the chances of finding him alive.
According to the local authorities, the rescuers – engineers and topographers – dig a three-meter horizontal tunnel, in parallel with the securing of the perimeter by the technical teams, to approach the pocket where the child is stuck.
In difficult conditions, they have worked without interruption for the past few hours in the light of powerful spotlights, bringing a gloomy touch to the scene of the tragedy, according to AFP journalists. Communications are very poor in this isolated basin.
Police reinforcements were deployed and some crowd movements sometimes hampered the work of rescuers and journalists.
Thousands of sympathizers have come in recent days, some from afar, as a sign of solidarity, and are camping on the spot despite the freezing cold of this mountainous area of the Rif, at an altitude of nearly 700 meters.
“We came to lend a hand to the rescuers. Rayan is a child from our region, we pray to God that he be saved”, testifies a volunteer. “We won’t leave until he comes out of the well.”
“We’re almost there. We’re working hard,” said a works supervisor. “The fatigue is felt but all the rescue teams are resisting despite the unexpected.”
The boy accidentally fell on Tuesday afternoon
The boy accidentally fell Tuesday afternoon into a 32-meter dry well, narrow and difficult to access, dug near the family residence in the village of Ighrane, near Bab Berred, in the province of Chefchaouen.
“I remain hopeful that my child will come out of this well alive,” Rayan’s father told state television 2M on Friday night. “I thank all those mobilized and those who support us in Morocco and elsewhere.”
The drama began with the disappearance of the child on Tuesday around 2:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT): “The whole family mobilized to look for him until we learned that he had fallen into the well”, told the local press the mother of the child, her eyes filled with tears.
Rayan’s accident has generated a lot of sympathy and solidarity on social media around the world.
“The rescuers are literally moving a mountain to save little #Rayan, I hope their efforts will not be in vain and that all those who prayed for him will have their prayers answered”, opined a surfer.
“Hold on little Rayan, hold on please,” another Twitter user implored.
A team is ready to rescue the child from the horizontal breach as soon as he comes out, local authorities told AFP.
A medical helicopter is on standby to take care of him.
“Our hearts are with the family and we pray to God that he finds his loved ones as soon as possible,” assured government spokesman Mustapha Baitas, who urged the crowd present “to let the rescuers work to save this child”.
This accident echoes a tragedy that occurred in early 2019 in Spain, in Andalusia. A two-year-old child had died after falling into an abandoned well 25 centimeters in diameter and more than 100 meters deep, dug to find water.
The body of little Julen had been found after thirteen days of research on an exceptional scale.
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