Tributes pour in for 'little Rayan' as Morocco prepares for funeral
The funeral is to be held on Monday, provincial council head said
Ighrane, Maroc: Morocco was in shock on 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.
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.
World leaders, celebrities mourn
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.
Leaders including His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took to social media to pay condolences to the boy’s family.
Sheikh Mohammed tweeted: “Our deepest condolences and sympathy to the family of Rayan... to Moroccan people… and to all humanity that grieved over this loss.. May Allah bless his soul in eternal peace and grant us all patience and solace.”
Sheikh Mohamed said, "with great sorrow, I learned the news of the death of Rayan. I extended sincerest condolences to his parents, his family and the Moroccan people and I pray to Allah the Almighty to grant them patience and fortitude to bear his loss."
Sheikh Mohamed also lauded the efforts made by the authorities and civil defence in Morocco to rescue the child.
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."
"Rayan's courage will stay in our memories and continue to inspire us," wrote AC Milan's Algerian midfielder Ismael Bennacer in a tweet, accompanied by a drawing of a child being lifted into the sky, carried by a heart-shaped balloon marked with the colours of Morocco.
On social media, people using the hashtag #SaveRayan, which had been trending across the country and around the world, expressed their jubilation.
Twitter users then began paying tribute and expressing sadness using the same hashtag.
"Rayan's courage will stay in our memories and continue to inspire us," AC Milan's Algerian midfielder Ismael Bennacer tweeted.
From hope to sorrow
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.
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.