Little Rayan who accidentally fell into a well in northern Morocco died despite the relentless efforts of rescuers deployed for five days to extract this 5-year-old child whose fate has moved the whole kingdom and far beyond.
Shortly before 10 p.m. (9 p.m. GMT) this Saturday, February 5, AFP journalists saw the father and mother, faces defeated, enter a tunnel dug by rescuers and communicating with the well, from which was finally took out the child. They came out shortly after and drove off in an ambulance, without saying a word, the mother riding up front, her eyes staring into space.
After a moment of confusion, the crowd, gathered for days, then dispersed in mournful silence. It was the royal cabinet that announced the death of the child about half an hour later. “Following the tragic accident which claimed the life of the child Rayan Oram, His Majesty King Mohammed VI called the parents of the deceased, who died after falling into a well,” he said in a statement.
على إثر الحادث المفجع الذي أودى بحياة الطفل ريان اورام, أجرى صاحب الجلالة الملك محمد السادس, حفظه الله, اتصالا هاتفيا مع السيد خالد اورام, والسيدة وسيمة خرشيش والدي الفقيد, الذي وافته المنية, بعد سقوطه في بئر
(بلاغ للديوان الملكي)https://t.co/23CVXBY2cn pic.twitter.com/QeOID1UVw8
— MAP Agency (@MAP_Information) February 5, 2022
An accidental fall
It took five days for rescuers to reach the child because they first had to drill a huge deep crevice and then a horizontal tunnel. Their progress was greatly slowed down by the nature of the soil, some layers being rocky and others very sandy.
The child had accidentally fallen on Tuesday evening, February 1, to the bottom of a dry well 32 meters deep, narrow and difficult to access, dug not far from the family home. “In a moment of inattention, the little one fell into the well that I was repairing. I couldn’t sleep a wink all night,” Rayan’s father told Le360.
Rescuers were able to deliver water and oxygen through tubes to Rayan, according to the MAP news agency. A medical team had been dispatched to the scene of the accident. A gendarmerie helicopter was ready to evacuate the child to a nearby hospital.