Boy, 5, stuck at bottom of 100ft well for 3 days as rescuers dig to save him

The boy, who was identified only by his first name, Rayan, fell into the well in the northern hill town of Chefchaouen, Morocco, on Tuesday – sparking a massive rescue operation

A five-year-old boy has been stuck at the bottom of a 100ft well for three days as rescuers are desperately digging to get to him.

The little lad, who was identified only by his first name, Rayan, fell into the well in the northern hill town of Chefchaouen, Morocco, on Tuesday.

His distraught mum said in a video shown on local media: “I ask Moroccans to pray for the safe return of my son.”

Rayan’s father told news site Le360 he had been repairing the well when the boy fell into it.

The rescue mission is complex because the well is 32 metres deep and gets more narrow as it descends.

It starts from 18-inches in diameter at the top, meaning the rescuers cannot go down themselves to retrieve the child.

The hilly region around Chefchaouen is bitterly cold in winter and though food has been lowered to Rayan, it was not clear whether he has eaten any.

Rescuers have also given Rayan water and oxygen through a tube as they continue their complex mission.

They are working through the night with bulldozers to cut a massive trench into the hill next to the well.

Once they reach the same depth as the well the rescuers can start digging horizontally to save him, a witness told Reuters.

By 3am GMT on Friday, authorities said there were less than 20ft of earth left to dig to reach him.

Pictures from the scene showed multiple diggers delving deep into the earth from multiple directions. as small crowds gathered on the edge of the ever-growing pit.

State news outlet SNRT News quoted a rescuer on Friday saying the boy was still alive even after being stuck in the well since Tuesday.

One of the rescue team told local media on Friday: “We are preparing the most critical and most complicated rescue step …we need to dig horizontally three to five meters.’

“But to do so we have to stabilise the earth and remove the risk of a landslide because we will deploy a rescue team and we cannot jeopardise their lives.”

Authorities have prepared a helicopter to take the boy to the hospital once he is freed, national news channel 2M said.

Lead rescuer Abdelhabi Temrani told Al Oula television that the diameter of the well was less than 45 centimetres.

News of the rescue mission sparked an outpouring of sympathy online, with the Arabic hashtag #SaveRayan going viral across the North African region, including in neighbouring Algeria.

‘The heart of every Moroccan is with this angel,’ one person wrote on Twitter.

The boy’s fate has also attracted crowds of people to the site of the operation, putting pressure on rescuers operating in “difficult conditions”, it was said.