The painstaking five-day operation launched to rescue five-year-old Ryan Oram, which gripped Morocco, ended in a tragic end.
Moroccan emergency workers found a five-year-old boy dead at the bottom of a well late Saturday, the tragic end of a painful five-day rescue operation that has gripped the country and beyond.
"Following the tragic accident in which the child Ryan Oram lost his life, His Majesty King Mohammed VI called the parents of the boy who died after falling from the well," said a statement from the royal court.
But news of his death sent a chill through the cold mountain air of his home village of Ighraan in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, where thousands of volunteers and well-wishers gathered this week to show solidarity with his family.
AFP correspondents saw the boy's parents walk down the slopes in the cut, before waving and boarding the ambulance without saying a word.
No official information was given about the boy's condition until a statement from the palace was given by Moroccan media.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday, rescue teams, using bulldozers and front-end loaders, dug the surrounding red soil to the level where the boy was trapped, and drill teams excavated a horizontal tunnel to reach him. started.
The more time passed, the more fear grew over Ryan's condition.
The audience applauded, sang religious songs or prayed, chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) in unison to encourage the rescuers.
'Showing solidarity'
"We are showing solidarity with this child, who is dear to Morocco and the whole world," said Hafid Al-Azzouz, who lives in the region.
The operation made the landscape resemble a construction site.
Throughout the night he worked non-stop under powerful floodlights which gave a gloomy air to the scene.
He had said earlier in the week that the boy was repairing the well when it collapsed.
A Twitter user paid tribute to the rescue workers working round the clock, saying "they are real life heroes".
The boy's ordeal echoed a tragedy in Spain in early 2019 when a two-year-old boy died after falling into an abandoned well 25 centimeters wide and more than 70 meters deep.