Berliner Boersenzeitung - Morocco, world mourn 'little Rayan' after well rescue fails

EUR -
AED 4.303675
AFN 80.848492
ALL 97.312739
AMD 449.576417
ANG 2.097205
AOA 1074.462655
ARS 1550.139863
AUD 1.789122
AWG 2.110845
AZN 2.027591
BAM 1.957104
BBD 2.367206
BDT 142.454882
BGN 1.957697
BHD 0.44173
BIF 3462.419058
BMD 1.171715
BND 1.500655
BOB 8.101465
BRL 6.317184
BSD 1.172446
BTN 102.526162
BWP 15.647088
BYN 3.876666
BYR 22965.622178
BZD 2.355089
CAD 1.613048
CDF 3386.257874
CHF 0.942264
CLF 0.028527
CLP 1119.152307
CNY 8.41198
CNH 8.40997
COP 4712.428499
CRC 592.977238
CUC 1.171715
CUP 31.050459
CVE 110.338491
CZK 24.454519
DJF 208.774599
DKK 7.462486
DOP 71.637714
DZD 152.079225
EGP 56.614972
ERN 17.575731
ETB 164.209172
FJD 2.633138
FKP 0.867461
GBP 0.863619
GEL 3.15771
GGP 0.867461
GHS 12.457404
GIP 0.867461
GMD 84.949632
GNF 10166.771545
GTQ 8.992721
GYD 245.284998
HKD 9.197878
HNL 30.735471
HRK 7.533657
HTG 153.467632
HUF 395.343224
IDR 18862.157615
ILS 3.960158
IMP 0.867461
INR 102.468564
IQD 1535.922997
IRR 49358.512335
ISK 143.195359
JEP 0.867461
JMD 187.895147
JOD 0.830768
JPY 172.379846
KES 151.479674
KGS 102.349165
KHR 4695.20737
KMF 493.879832
KPW 1054.470683
KRW 1614.787767
KWD 0.357877
KYD 0.97703
KZT 630.935617
LAK 25382.122304
LBP 104960.00405
LKR 352.754951
LRD 235.064527
LSL 20.526772
LTL 3.459771
LVL 0.70876
LYD 6.370243
MAD 10.561234
MDL 19.573619
MGA 5170.487914
MKD 61.579175
MMK 2459.706324
MNT 4213.945705
MOP 9.479428
MRU 46.792166
MUR 53.230828
MVR 18.044918
MWK 2033.045428
MXN 21.818571
MYR 4.92999
MZN 74.942741
NAD 20.526772
NGN 1796.67353
NIO 43.148739
NOK 11.947244
NPR 164.041659
NZD 1.959538
OMR 0.450554
PAB 1.172391
PEN 4.132252
PGK 4.949296
PHP 66.335551
PKR 332.72421
PLN 4.25342
PYG 8781.849122
QAR 4.275548
RON 5.060051
RSD 117.173915
RUB 93.153351
RWF 1696.493747
SAR 4.396763
SBD 9.643912
SCR 16.573885
SDG 703.620657
SEK 11.175904
SGD 1.499591
SHP 0.920784
SLE 27.187579
SLL 24570.286982
SOS 670.057727
SRD 43.843833
STD 24252.143453
STN 24.515596
SVC 10.258833
SYP 15234.585294
SZL 20.521844
THB 37.795434
TJS 10.932508
TMT 4.112721
TND 3.447396
TOP 2.744277
TRY 47.751154
TTD 7.962065
TWD 35.060658
TZS 3052.318817
UAH 48.679423
UGX 4171.653906
USD 1.171715
UYU 46.951272
UZS 14666.768754
VES 155.54821
VND 30804.398319
VUV 140.078676
WST 3.114567
XAF 656.405401
XAG 0.030442
XAU 0.000348
XCD 3.166619
XCG 2.113025
XDR 0.82294
XOF 656.394189
XPF 119.331742
YER 281.533921
ZAR 20.509883
ZMK 10546.845765
ZMW 26.99521
ZWL 377.291886
  • RYCEF

    -0.1000

    14.7

    -0.68%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    73.08

    0%

  • CMSC

    0.0700

    23.15

    +0.3%

  • SCU

    0.0000

    12.72

    0%

  • BCC

    2.3500

    86.61

    +2.71%

  • SCS

    0.3750

    16.565

    +2.26%

  • BCE

    0.4700

    24.97

    +1.88%

  • NGG

    0.1280

    70.408

    +0.18%

  • RIO

    0.3250

    63.425

    +0.51%

  • VOD

    0.1150

    11.655

    +0.99%

  • RELX

    -0.1050

    47.725

    -0.22%

  • CMSD

    0.1150

    23.675

    +0.49%

  • GSK

    0.9400

    39.16

    +2.4%

  • JRI

    0.0250

    13.405

    +0.19%

  • BTI

    -0.9150

    57.005

    -1.61%

  • AZN

    2.2350

    77.575

    +2.88%

  • BP

    0.0050

    34.075

    +0.01%

Advertisement Image
Morocco, world mourn 'little Rayan' after well rescue fails
Morocco, world mourn 'little Rayan' after well rescue fails

Morocco, world mourn 'little Rayan' after well rescue fails

Morocco was in shock Sunday after emergency crews found a five-year-old boy dead at the bottom of a well in a tragic end to a five-day rescue operation that gripped the nation and the world.

Advertisement Image

Text size:

The ordeal of "little Rayan" since he fell down the 32-metre (100-foot) well on Tuesday gained global attention and sparked an outpouring of sympathy online, with the Arabic Twitter hashtag #SaveRayan trending.

"The fall of a child who reminded the whole world of the values of humanity," read one Moroccan newspaper headline, while others bemoaned the "tragic epilogue" that had brought "sadness and shock".

The boy's father said he had been repairing the well when the boy fell in, close to the family home in the village of Ighrane in the Rif mountains of northern Morocco.

"Little angel, you fought until the end, a hero", said one Twitter user called Anouar, while another said "he has brought people together around him".

The funeral is to be held on Monday, provincial council head Abderahim Bouazza said.

Throughout the major digging operation to extricate Rayan from the bottom of the well shaft, authorities had cautioned that they did not know whether he was alive.

The shaft, just 45 centimetres (18 inches) across, was too narrow for the boy to be reached directly, and widening it was deemed too risky -- so earth-movers dug a wide slope into the hill to reach him from the side.

The operation made the landscape resemble a construction site, and red-helmeted civil defence personnel had at times been suspended by rope, as if on a cliff face.

- From hope to sorrow -

Rescue crews, using bulldozers and front-end loaders, had excavated the surrounding red earth down to the level where the boy was trapped, and drill teams began creating a horizontal tunnel to reach him from the side.

On Saturday morning, the head of the rescue efforts, Abdelhadi Tamrani, said images from a camera sent down showed the child "lying on his side", and that while it was "impossible" to confirm he was alive there were "very high hopes".

But progress slowed as the drill teams worked by hand to avoid any vibrations that might bring the brittle soil down on the child, local authorities said.

Late Saturday evening, crowds cheered when the rescue workers broke through the final stretch of earth to reach the boy, and volunteer digger Ali Sahraoui cleared the last soil away with his hands.

But soon after, AFP correspondents saw the boy's parents walk down the slope into the horizontal tunnel, visibly crushed. They returned and boarded an ambulance without saying a word.

- Race against time -

It was Morocco's royal cabinet that announced he had been found dead.

"Following the tragic accident which cost the life of the child Rayan Oram, His Majesty King Mohammed VI called the parents of the boy who died after falling down the well," a statement from the royal court said.

Thousands of people had gathered to watch the rescue beside the giant pit, singing songs to urge on the diggers, who worked through the nights under floodlights.

Many of the watchers prayed, chanting in unison "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest).

Workers had tried to get oxygen and water down to the child but it was not clear whether he was able to use them, AFP correspondents reported.

The race against time to rescue Rayan was followed live across the world, and as soon as the tragic conclusion was announced, tributes poured in.

Pope Francis, while mourning the loss of Rayan, praised the "beautiful" sight of "how all the people gathered together" to try to save a child.

"Our hearts broke last night," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a condolence message to King Mohammed.

French President Emmanuel Macron said: "I want to say to the family of little Rayan and to the Moroccan people that we share your pain."

"We all of us had been holding out hope that little Rayan would make it," Moroccan-American novelist Laila Lalami wrote on Twitter. "This is all so tragic."

hic-fs-isb-agr/fka/pjm/it

(Y.Berger--BBZ)

Advertisement Image