Watch the drama unfold as Argentina’s stoppage-time equaliser against Morocco results in the match being temporarily suspended due to pitch invaders and flares being thrown onto the pitch. Almost 90 minutes after the postponement, VAR rules the equaliser offside and plays the match to a finish behind closed doors. Africa is guaranteed at least one medal in the men’s Olympic football after Egypt beat Paraguay and Morocco thrash the USA to reach the last four. But this turned to heartbreak minutes later when the statement came announcing that Rayan had died.
Is this the wildest end to a football match ever?
The operation was made difficult because of a mixture of rocky and sandy soils in the area, which meant any interference with the well risked triggering a landslide. The king had expressed his deepest condolences and sincere compassion, it added. No word had been given at the time about his condition, and the apparent rescue was initially met with cheers from the crowds. Rescuers finally brought the boy out of the well on Saturday evening. The battle for control of the western city has intensified over the last few days as the RSF group advances.
- Rescuers who are desperately trying to reach a five-year-old boy who fell into a well in northern Morocco four days ago say they are “almost there”.
- The mixture of rocky and sandy soils meant rescuers deemed opening the water well’s narrow shaft to be too dangerous.
- Thousands gathered at the scene to encourage rescuers, many of whom worked round the clock using floodlights during the night.
- The battle for control of the western city has intensified over the last few days as the RSF group advances.
- Rescuers finally managed to retrieve his body late on Saturday after removing much of the adjacent hillside and delicately tunnelling a horizontal passage into the well.
News in language
For three days, search crews used bulldozers to dig a parallel ditch. Then on Friday, they started excavating a horizontal tunnel to reach the trapped boy. Morocco’s MAP news agency said that experts in topographical engineering were called upon for help. The head of the rescue committee, Abdelhadi Temrani — speaking to local television 2M — said on Saturday that rescuers had just 2 metres left to dig to reach the hole where the boy was trapped.
‘It’s shameful’: Melbourne mayor vows to ban e-scooters in CBD within 30 days after council vote
Hundreds of people gathered to watch the operation, singing religious songs, praying and chanting “Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)”. The bid to free the boy, Rayan Oram, had gripped the country, with hundreds of people gathered at the well and thousands more following online. A royal statement announced his death soon after his removal from the well. Rayan Awram, aged five, fell into the well at his village of Ighara in the hills near Chefchaouen on Tuesday, triggering a huge rescue effort that engrossed the country. “Please God, protect him just like you protected Yunis in the belly of the whale,” read a caption on a widely shared drawing of a boy playing with toys while being trapped in a deep well. After the pathway leading to Rayan was cleared, paramedics rushed to the tunnel to attend to him.
news Alerts
Rescuers who are desperately trying to reach a five-year-old boy who fell into a well in northern Morocco four days ago say they are “almost there”. Rayan fell into a 32-metre well located outside his home in the village of Ighran in Morocco’s mountainous northern Chefchaouen province on Tuesday evening. In a statement, Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents. His distraught parents were joined by hundreds of villagers and others who had gathered to watch the rescue operation. Heavy equipment is used to dig through a mountain on Friday during an attempt to rescue a boy trapped in a well. The publication said there was a setback on Friday when debris filled the parallel hole, delaying efforts for an unknown amount of time.
Timeline
The village of about 500 people is dotted with deep wells, many used for irrigating the cannabis crop that is the main source of income for many in the poor, remote and arid region of Morocco’s Rif Mountains. “The diggers encountered a hard rock on their way and were, therefore, very careful to avoid any landslides or cracks,” he said. A small boy trapped in a well in northern Morocco for four days has died before rescuers managed to reach him late on Saturday, two government officials said. A “Save Rayan” Arabic hashtag trended in several Arab countries, including in neighboring Algeria as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as thousands of users took to social media to offer their prayers. In the last stretch, which took longer than expected, rescuers resorted to manual digging in fear of possible landslides that would put Rayan’s life at risk.
They also inserted pipes as a shelter from rock collapses, television footage showed. A five-year-old Moroccan boy who was trapped in a well for four days has died, despite painstaking efforts to rescue him. Thousands of people have been watching footage of the rescue on social media, and a large group of onlookers has gathered at the scene. Online messages of support and concern for the boy poured in from around the world as rescue efforts dragged on for four days.
Large pipes were also used to protect rescue teams by providing a secure passage to the shaft. Some worked round the clock, using powerful floodlights during the night. Footage on Thursday from a camera lowered into the well showed that the boy was alive and conscious, but there had been no update on his condition since then.
According to the statement, the boy died before rescuers could save him. Rayan fell into a 32-meter (105-feet) well located outside his home in the village of Ighran in Morocco’s mountainous northern Chefchaouen province on Tuesday evening. Rayan fell into a 32-metre well located outside his home on Tuesday evening. But as the efforts stretched into a fourth day, with unstable soil making the task of digging him out safely more difficult, rescuers retrieved the boy’s body late Saturday. A 5-year-old boy who became trapped in a well more than 100 feet deep since Tuesday has died, the royal palace in Morocco said Saturday.
The boy, named by local media as Rayan, was reportedly playing near the well in the town of Tamorot, 100km (62 miles) from Chefchaouen on Tuesday. Hundreds of villagers and others had gathered to watch the rescue operation. The king hailed the rescuers for their relentless work and the community for landing support to Rayan’s family. His parents, Khaled Oram and Wassima Khersheesh, had been escorted to an ambulance before the boy emerged. His parents had been escorted to an ambulance before the boy emerged. The country’s King Mohammed sent condolences to his parents, a statement carried by state media reported.
He is believed to have fallen about 32m (104ft) through a narrow opening. It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. The exact circumstances of how the boy fell in the well were unclear. The work has been especially difficult because of fears that the soil surrounding the well could collapse on the boy. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. Many likened his story to that of Prophet Yunis, commonly referred to as Jonah in the Bible, who was swallowed up by a whale for three days before the giant fish spat him out.
Rescuers finally managed to retrieve his body late on Saturday after removing much of the adjacent hillside and delicately tunnelling a horizontal passage into the well. Rayan reportedly fell through a narrow opening of the well while playing in the village of Ighran in Morocco’s Chefchaouen province on Tuesday evening. As the search began the child’s immediate condition was not clear, although local publication Le360 reported breathing was detected and oxygen was pumped into the area of the well he occupied. Moroccan celebrity TV host Rachid Allali even cancelled his show out of solidarity with Rayan. Thousands gathered at the scene to encourage rescuers, many of whom worked round the clock using floodlights during the night. The incident is reminiscent of a similar tragedy in Spain in 2019, in which a two-year-old boy died after falling into a borehole near the city of Malaga.
Temrani, speaking to local television 2M, said Saturday that rescuers had just two metres left to dig to reach the hole where the boy had been trapped. “The diggers encountered a hard rock on their way, and were therefore very careful to avoid any landslides or cracks,” he said. Temrani, speaking to local television 2M, said Saturday that rescuers had just two meters (yards) left to dig to reach the hole where the boy is trapped. On Friday, they started excavating a horizontal tunnel to reach the trapped boy. Then, on Friday, they started excavating a horizontal tunnel to reach the trapped boy. Moroccans had taken to social media to offer their hopes for the boy’s survival, using the hashtag #SaveRayan, which brought global attention to the rescue efforts.
His parents stood by anxiously, with security personnel forming a barrier in front of a crowd of onlookers as the sound of prayers blared through a loudspeaker. Live video from the scene showed multiple American-made Cat excavators around the well, with rescuers also working by hand. Medical staff from the kingdom’s health ministry was deployed and ready to treat the boy, and a helicopter was standing by to fly him to the nearest medical facility, according to state media. Among the rescuers, one man singled out for special praise was Ali Sahrawi, who volunteered to use his experience to help dig Rayan out using just a pick-axe when it became too dangerous to use heavy machinery.
Online messages of support and concern for the boy poured in from around the world as the rescue efforts dragged through the night. Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents in a statement released by the palace. The boy, identified as Rayan Awram, fell down the well on his family’s property near the village of Ighran in the Chefchaouen province on Tuesday night, according to local reports. The boy’s parents were escorted to an ambulance before the boy emerged from a tunnel dug specifically for his rescue. A separate trench was dug to access the bottom of the well, although when rescuers reached Aourram on 5 February it was discovered that he had died. The operation had to be paused briefly several times to allow crews to check that the hillside was safe from collapsing and that no soil was entering the well.
A parallel hole was dug overnight almost to the depth of the well, state media reported, and Le360 said an additional horizontal tunnel would have to be created to reach him. His father had been repairing the well in the small northern town of Tamorot in the Rif mountains when Rayan got trapped on Tuesday afternoon. The hashtag #SaveRayan was trending for days in many countries, even in Morocco’s traditional rival, Algeria. The mixture of rocky and sandy soils meant rescuers deemed opening the water well’s narrow shaft to be too dangerous. Morocco’s MAP news agency said experts in topographical engineering were called upon for help.
IGHRAN, Morocco — The Moroccan royal palace said Saturday that a 5-year-old boy who was trapped in a deep well for four days has died. Several Moroccan media outlets livestreamed the rescue operation to hundreds of thousands of viewers, leading to an outpouring of sympathy. A CCTV camera lowered into the well to track Rayan showed him alive on Thursday, albeit he appeared to be suffering from head injuries. Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents in a statement released by the palace and carried by state media reported.
Nationwide, Moroccans had taken to social media to offer their hopes for the boy’s survival, using the hashtag #SaveRayan which has brought global attention to the rescue efforts. Emergency crews finally reached Rayan on Saturday evening, four days after he became trapped. The ambulance carrying him was initially greeted with cheers from the crowds before the tragic news of the five-year-old’s death was confirmed in a statement from the palace of King Mohammed VI. Relentless digging by bulldozers parallel to the well reached the full depth of 32 meters before rescuers embarked on a horizontal dig to reach the boy. A five-year-old boy who was trapped for four days in a deep well in Morocco has died, the royal palace said Saturday. The boy, Rayan, was pulled out Saturday night by rescuers after a lengthy operation that captivated global attention.