The body of the Moroccan child Rayan arrived today, Monday, at his birthplace in the village of Igran, affiliated with the city of Chefchaouen in northern Morocco, where he is expected to be buried amid a large public crowd, after being transported by a Royal Gendarmerie plane from the military hospital in the capital Rabat to Chefchaouen.

The Moroccan child Rayan, aged 5, spent about 100 hours inside a well pit 32 meters deep and no more than 30 cm in diameter, on the outskirts of the city of Chefchaouen, 5 days during which he suffered a bleeding in his head due to hitting the rocks during his fall.

Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners flocked to the Moroccan child Rayan’s house after parking their cars below the roundabout following the decision not to allow vehicles to pass.

Medical examinations conducted by the medical team that entered the tunnel to extract Rayan showed that he was suffering from fractures in the neck and spine.

Millions in Morocco and the Arab world awaited a happy ending to the child’s ordeal whose story brought wide international sympathy, but fate decreed that he take his last breath alone shortly before the rescue teams reached him.



For days, millions worldwide held their breath as they followed the strenuous efforts to save the Moroccan child Rayan, and his suffering and death sparked feelings of sadness, sleepless nights, and tears that united people without any political, ideological, or ethnic considerations.

The world followed the crisis moment by moment through media in regional and international countries and on social media, and political leaders and Arab and global figures mourned Rayan after his death was confirmed following his retrieval.

The five-year-old child Rayan remained trapped at a depth of 32 meters in a narrow well in the village of "Igran" near Chefchaouen in northern Morocco for five days without rescue teams being able to extract him, due to the nature of the soil in that area prone to landslides.

Rescue team cameras captured Rayan in the first two days after his fall moving slightly. However, paramedics failed to enter the well and retrieve him due to its narrowness, as its diameter in the middle narrows to 20 centimeters. Rescue teams had to carefully dig a parallel hole to the well for fear of soil collapse.

Rayan’s case mobilized Arab and international sympathy, and the hashtag "Save Rayan" spread on social media from the second day of his fall, followed by several Arab and international channels hoping for his survival.

However, overwhelming sadness and shock descended on Moroccans and those who followed his tragedy after the announcement of his death minutes after his extraction. Sad comments followed on social media and global media from prominent figures and citizens, whether Arab or foreign.