Songs and prayers from the crowd accompany the last efforts of Moroccan rescuers on Saturday who are trying everything to save little Rayan, a five-year-old child who fell into a deep well five days ago, whom they still hope to find.

The rescue operation is “very advanced but it is difficult to say how long it will last because you have to take into account the nature of the ground that remains to be drilled”, local authorities told AFP.

The boy “appeared lying on his side, from behind” on the images of an inspection camera integrated into the cramped well where he fell on Tuesday, but it is “impossible to say that he is alive with certainty”, explained to AFP a chief rescuer, Abdelhadi Tamrani.

However, he said he had “very high hopes” of extracting him alive from this narrow and 32-meter deep hole, dug near the family residence in Ighrane, not far from the village of Bab Berred, in the province of Chefchaouen.

The rescuers tried to send oxygen and water through tubes and bottles down to Rayan, without certainty that he could have used them, according to AFP journalists.

The hand drilling of a horizontal tunnel of a few meters is progressing at a brisk pace in this poor locality in northern Morocco. The main challenge is to avoid rockslides.

This risk still hangs over the rescue operation due to the nature of the ground at the scene of the incident, some areas being rocky, others very sandy.

Thousands of sympathizers have come in recent days, some from afar, as a sign of solidarity, and are camping on the spot despite the freezing cold of this mountainous area of ​​the Rif, at an altitude of nearly 700 meters.

Metal barriers have been set up since Friday to contain the crowd.

Real-life heroes

As the outcome approaches, onlookers chant in chorus “Allah Akbar” (God is the greatest). People clap to encourage rescuers or sing religious songs in honor of the Prophet Muhammad.

“We stand in solidarity with this child, beloved in Morocco and around the world, we hope, by the will of God, that he will come out (of the well),” Hafid El Azzouz, a resident of the city, told AFP. region.

“I remain hopeful that my child will come out of this well alive,” Rayan’s father told 2M public television on Friday evening, thanking “all the people mobilized and those who support us in Morocco and elsewhere.”

Rayan’s fate has aroused a lot of sympathy on social networks around the world, from the Maghreb to Iraq, Yemen, Canada, or the United States, in all languages.

“Millions of people around the world are holding their breath in the race against time to save Rayan,” one user tweeted.

Another tips his hat to the rescuers who have been fighting for five days, tirelessly, to save the little one: “They are the heroes of real life. When your own life does not count in front of a noble cause. Keep it up guys, the the whole world is counting on you”.

Rayan in the arms of his parents

The hashtag #sauvezrayan continued to top the main Twitter trends in Morocco on Saturday.

“I can’t wait for the moment when I read the tweet that will say that #Rayan is in the arms of his parents”, hopes a surfer on Twitter.

A team is ready to rescue the child as soon as he is released, local authorities told AFP. A medical helicopter is on standby.

“Our hearts are with the family and we pray to God that he finds his loved ones as soon as possible”, assured the government spokesman, Mustapha Baitas, urging the curious “to let the rescuers work to save this child”.

This accident echoes a tragedy that occurred in early 2019 in Andalusia (Spain), where a two-year-old child died after falling into a well 25 centimeters in diameter and more than 100 meters deep.

The body of little Julen had been found after 13 days of research on an exceptional scale.