By Zeynep Tufekci Gulay
RABAT, Morocco (AA): Morocco’s Royal Court confirmed late Saturday the death of a 5-year-old boy who was stuck for five days in a well in a village in northern Morocco.
A statement announced Rayan Oram’s death soon after he was rescued and taken to a nearby hospital.
King Mohammed VI called Rayan’s parents to extend his condolences following the tragic accident.
“Following the tragic accident that claimed the life of the child Rayan Oram, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God protect him, made a phone call to Mr. Khaled Oram, and Mrs. Wassima Khersheesh, the parents of the deceased who passed away, after falling into a well,” the King’s statement said.
Rayan had been in a 32-meter (105-foot) deep dry well since Tuesday in Igran in the Chefchaouen region.
Desperate rescuers had been struggling to get Rayan out of the well.
Moroccan rescuers had tried to rescue him from the well. For three days, search crews used bulldozers to dig a parallel ditch. Then on Friday, they started excavating a horizontal tunnel to reach the trapped boy.
“A small rock has delayed the process of reaching Rayan by 3 hours,” Abdel-Hadi Al-Tamrani, a member of a local rescue committee, told a press conference.
“It took three hours of work to remove this rock, as it was not possible to drill hard in order to prevent the well from collapsing,” he added.
Desperate rescuers had since been struggling to pull him out of the well.
Earlier on Saturday, Minister of Equipment and Water Nizar Baraka said that authorities “have harnessed all possibilities” to save Rayan, noting that fears of a landslide have complicated the rescue operation.
* Writing by Ibrahim Mukhtar & Zehra Nur Duz in Ankara.
Additional report by The Muslim News
[Photo: Parents of 5-year-old boy Ryan Oram who was trapped for five days in a deep well who was rescued but died, are seen in Chefchaouen, Morocco on February 5, 2022. Photographer: Jalal Morchidi/AA]
