5th February, 2022
A 5-year-old boy has been trapped for the last four nights in a well in northern Morocco, a case that has gripped the country.
However, rescue workers edged closer to reaching the boy on Saturday.
The child, publicly identified only by his first name, Rayan, fell into the well in the hill town of Chefchaouen on Tuesday.
The well is 32 meters (100 feet) deep and narrows as it descends from a 45 cm (18 inches) diameter at the top, which means rescuers cannot go down themselves to retrieve the child.
Rescuers have worked with bulldozers to cut a massive trench into the hill next to the well, leaving a gaping hole in the reddish earth.
By Saturday morning they were digging horizontally towards the well and installing PVC tubes to protect against landslides and get the boy out.
“This second rescue step is about to finish … we are racing to get to Rayan and digging goes as planned,’’ lead rescuer, Abdelhadi Tamrani, told state TV 2M early on Saturday.
State news outlet SNRT News quoted a rescuer on Friday as saying the boy was still alive.
The hilly region around Chefchaouen is bitterly cold in winter and though food has been lowered to Rayan, it was not clear whether he has eaten any.
He has also been supplied with water and oxygen using a tube.
الحمد لله ولدنا مازال يقاوم ، فيديو هاد المساء#انقذوا_ريان pic.twitter.com/T6yKUcYSWa
— ⵣ (@YariMuhamed) February 4, 2022
#أنقذوا_ريان
الحمد الله ، والد ريان يؤكد مشاهدة إبنه يتحرك عبر كاميرا فرق الإنقاذ.
هناك أمل…
اخر تحديث لعملية الإنقاذ ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/RYIx7NQH6I— ⵣ (@YariMuhamed) February 5, 2022
A local witness told Reuters that horizontal digging was delayed by rocks which complicated manual excavation.
A helicopter was standing by to ferry Rayan to the hospital as soon as he is freed.
Thousands of Moroccans have taken to social media to express their sympathy with the boy, causing the hashtag #SaveRayan to trend on Twitter for hours across the country.