Morocco buries Rayan, the 5-year-old boy who was found dead after being trapped down a deep well for five days. the funeral prayers were led in accordance with Islamic burial rules.
The body of Rayan, 5, was pulled out on Saturday night after an agonising rescue operation that was hampered by fears of a landslide.
Hundreds of people attended the funeral of the 5-year-old Rayan who died trapped in a well. The funeral took place after the Dhuhr prayer in Tamort commune, near Chefchaouen.
Morocco buries Rayan
“The silence is terrible this morning in the village. Everyone was praying that he would come out alive. Everyone cried,” a relative of the family told local media.
The Royal Moroccan Gendarmes and auxiliary police forces, as well as the local authority, were on-site to manage the funeral, which was attended by hundreds of people.
They had to use bulldozers to create a pathway for those attending the funeral, to the remote village.
King Mohammed VI phoned the family to express his condolences, said the royal cabinet’s statement.
Pope leads tributes to Moroccans
Abroad, Pope Francis greeted “a whole (Moroccan) people who came together to save Rayan”, during the Angelus prayer celebrated in the Vatican.
“They tried everything, unfortunately, he did not survive. But what an example. Thank you to these people for this testimony,” said François.
The pope’s words came as work began on Sunday to fill in the relief tunnels that rescuers had drilled to try and get to Rayan.
A race against time
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.
Rescuers used a rope to send oxygen and water down to the boy as well as a camera to monitor him.
By Saturday morning, the head of the rescue committee, Abdelhadi Temrani, said: “It is not possible to determine the child’s condition at all at this time.”
The work had been especially difficult because of fears that the soil surrounding the well could collapse on the boy.
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.
Rayan cause of death Morocco
Rayan was trapped in a well and once his body was recovered he was transported on the same night to the military hospital in Rabat for an autopsy to examine Rayan’s cause of death. The results have not been revealed yet.
The five-year-old boy who had been trapped in a well for four days had been in communication with rescuers died hours before painstaking efforts to rescue him.https://t.co/0xImHrU3ae#أنقذوا_ريان #SaveRayan pic.twitter.com/vf4MhckH1A
— WTX News UK (@WtxNews) February 6, 2022
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