Morocco in shock after the death of five-year-old Rayan, who fell into a well

Morocco was in shock on Sunday, the day after the discovery of the lifeless body of little Rayan, who accidentally fell into a well at the beginning of the week and was found dead despite five days of relentless efforts by rescuers, followed by the whole world. Sign of the strong emotion caused by the tragedy, it is the royal cabinet that announced late Saturday evening the death of the five-year-old child. Following the tragic accident that 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.

 

The race against the clock led for five days by the rescuers had been followed live by many Internet users, and Saturday evening, tributes poured in on social networks from all over the world, from the Maghreb to Iraq, Yemen, France or the United States, in all languages. Rayan's courage will remain in our memories and will continue to inspire us. The dedication of the Moroccan people and rescue workers too, wrote AC Milan's Algerian international Ismael Bennacer, in a tweet accompanied by a drawing of a child rising into the sky clinging to a heart-shaped balloon in Moroccan colors.

 

Tragic epilogue... Sadness and shock in Morocco... The fall of a child who reminded the world of the values of humanity, commented the Sunday press. We had all kept hope that little Rayan would come out of this. All this is so tragic, also reacted on Twitter the Moroccan-American novelist Laila Lalami, while French President Emmanuel Macron said on Facebook to the family of little Rayan and the Moroccan people that we share their pain.

 

It took five days for rescuers to reach the child because they had to first drill a huge crevasse deep down and then a horizontal tunnel. Rayan had accidentally fallen on Tuesday into the 32-meter dry well, narrow and difficult to access, dug near the family residence in the village of Ighrane, in the northern province of Chefchaouen. Entering a horizontal breach on Saturday afternoon, rescuers had continued their work inch by inch, digging by hand to avoid any landslide.

 

The funeral will take place tomorrow (Monday), Abderrahim Bouazza, the deputy of Chefchaouen province, told AFP. No official information has been released about a possible autopsy, but it is probably the reason for the delay of the funeral. According to Muslim tradition, funerals are held quickly after death. This accident echoes a tragedy that occurred in early 2019 in Andalusia (Spain), where two-year-old Julen had perished after falling into a well with a diameter of 25 centimeters and a depth of more than 100 meters. His body had been found after 13 days of research of an exceptional scale.