CAIRO — The operation to save a 5-year-old boy who fell to the bottom of a 100-foot-deep well in northern Morocco three days ago reached a critical stage on Friday, as Moroccans and others across North Africa breathlessly followed the rescue on live streams.
The boy, named Rayan, has been stuck in the well near his home in the village of Tomrote, near the city of Chefchaouen, since Tuesday afternoon. Working day and night, rescuers had brought in bulldozers to dig a parallel shaft from which they could tunnel through to reach the child, but they feared that either part of the well or the parallel shaft would collapse before they could get there.
According to the state-run news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse, the drilling process is in its “final stages.” Rescuers have been able to send him oxygen and water. Short videos of the boy, barely moving, were shared where he appeared to still be breathing.
Local news reports said that even a local mountaineering and caving society had gotten involved in the rescue effort.
In an interview with Le360, a local publication, Rayan’s father said that he had been in the process of fixing the well, which he owns, when Rayan fell in.
“Everyone is doing their best so that he comes out alive and that we can take him in our arms by the end of the day,” he said. “But I do not hide from you that his mother and I are dejected and very worried.”
As broadcasts from the scene showed bulldozers digging under floodlights, thousands of Moroccans waited in suspense, making the hashtag #SaveRayan a viral rallying cry on Twitter. The hashtag was trending across Morocco and neighboring Algeria, and even in France, where there is a large Moroccan diaspora.
Using rope, rescue workers on Thursday lowered an oxygen tube and water to the boy and also sent down a camera to monitor him, according to Maghreb Arabe Presse.
