Boy trapped in Moroccan well found dead

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy trapped down a Moroccan well for four days, whose plight garnered worldwide attention, was last night pronounced dead.

Rayan Awram fell into a 100-foot deep well near his home in Ighrane, a village near Chefchaouen in the Rif Mountains on Tuesday.

Footage from the scene last night showed the boy wrapped in a yellow blanket after he had been pulled from a tunnel dug specifically for the rescue.

His parents had been escorted to an ambulance before Rayan emerged.

King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s family in a statement released by the palace.

Working non-stop overnight, rescuers dug a horizontal tunnel to reach the pocket where Rayan was situated.

Earlier in the operation, they had sent down a camera, as well as oxygen and water. In short videos of the boy shared to social media, he appeared to be shivering and in a delicate condition.

The images gripped the country, with hundreds of people gathered at the well and more following online.

As time went on, fears persisted over whether Rayan would be alive.

He had plunged through the well’s narrow opening and his rescue had been hampered by fears of a landslide. The exact circumstances of how the boy fell into the well are unclear.

The village of about 500 people is dotted with deep wells, most of them used for irrigating the cannabis crop that is the main source of income for many in the mountainous region.