Mourners stood in the remote forested hills to farewell five-year-old Rayan Awram, who died after being trapped in a well for days Moroccans pray during the funeral of Rayan Awram, who died on Saturday after a days-long effort to rescue him from a well. Moroccans pray during the funeral of Rayan Awram, who died on Saturday after a days-long effort to rescue him from a well. Photograph: Reuters Agence France-Presse Tue 8 Feb 2022 00.41 GMT Huge crowds laid to rest Rayan Awram, a five-year-old Moroccan boy who spent four days trapped down a well and sparked a rescue operation that gripped the world but ended in tragedy. Hundreds stood to mourn in a cemetery in the remote forested hills of the northern Chefchaouen region on Monday, a few kilometres (miles) from the site of the accident, as an imam read funeral prayers. The boy’s small coffin, draped in a green sheet covered with Koranic scriptures, was then laid in the ground to the sound of religious chanting. An ambulance carrying the body of five-year-old Rayan Oram leaves the scene of the rescue attempt. Death of Moroccan boy in well draws sympathy from around world Read more The boy had fallen down a narrow, 32-metre (100-foot) dry well last Tuesday, sparking a complex earth-moving operation to try to extract him without triggering a landslide. Well-wishers had flooded social media with messages of sympathy and prayers that he would be brought out alive. On Saturday night, crowds had cheered as rescue workers cleared away the final handfuls of soil to reach him, the end of a marathon digging operation in the village of Ighrane in Morocco’s Rif mountains. Advertisement But their joy turned to grief when the royal cabinet of the north African nation announced that the boy was dead. King Mohammed VI had called the parents to voice his condolences. Ighrane resident Mounir Mourid said Monday that the village was in shock. “Rayan is carved forever on our hearts,” he said. “It’s like he shone a light on the situation in our region,” he added. “Here, we’ve never seen the media or politicians. We don’t have a phone signal, roads, hospitals or schools.” Rayan’s father, Khaled Aourram, said he had been repairing the well near the family home when his son fell in. The shaft, just 45 centimetres (18 inches) across, was too narrow for rescuers to reach Rayan directly, and widening it was deemed too risky – so earth movers dug a wide slope into the hill to reach him from the side. Rescue crews, using bulldozers and front-end loaders, excavated the surrounding red earth down to the level where he was trapped, before drill teams carefully dug a horizontal tunnel, under the constant threat of a landslide. Vast crowds came to offer their support, singing and praying to encourage the rescuers who worked around the clock – but to no avail. Mourad Fazoui, in Morocco’s capital Rabat, was one of millions mourning the tragedy. “May his soul rest in peace and may God open the gates of heaven to him,” the salesman said. Men pray during the funeral of Rayan Awram. Men pray during the funeral of Rayan Awram. Photograph: Reuters Social media across the Arab world was full with messages of support, grief, and praise for rescue workers. Even citizens of Morocco’s regional rival Algeria voiced their sadness, including national football coach Djamel Belmadi. One social media user wrote that the child had “succeeded where leaders and the media have failed” in that he “united people around him.” But one deplored a “dystopian world” where “Arab nations are moved” by the Morocco rescue operation, while thousands of children die in conflict or of hunger in Yemen and Syria. Inside Morocco, some pinned the blame on the widespread problem of unauthorised, often unprotected wells in the impoverished region. Noureddine Moudiane, a pro-government member of parliament, called on the authorities to “put an end to informal well-digging, which often doesn’t follow the relevant legal procedures”.