Tragic end for bid to save 5-year-old Rayan, trapped 30 meters down well in Morocco

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Updated 06 February 2022
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Tragic end for bid to save 5-year-old Rayan, trapped 30 meters down well in Morocco

  • Rayan Awram was rushed to hospital as soon as he was brought to the surface from a well
  • For days, complex and risky earth-moving operation gripped residents of Morocco and beyond

JEDDAH/LONDON: The race to save a five-year-old boy who fell 32 meters down a well in Morocco ended in tragedy on Saturday when he was found dead.

The Moroccan royal palace confirmed that Rayan, who was trapped in the deep well for four days, has died.

Moroccan King Mohammed VI made a phone call to Khaled Awram and Wassima Khersheesh, Rayan’s parents, to offer his condolences to the family over the boy’s tragic passing, the palace said in a separate statement.

Millions worldwide watching a live video feed from the scene held their breath as rescuers and a medical team emerged from a tunnel carrying Rayan Awram, who had been trapped since Tuesday.




King Mohammed VI made a phone call to Khaled Awram and Wassima Khersheesh, Rayan’s parents, to offer his condolences. (MAP)

The rescue operation was constantly delayed by rocks and imperilled by the threat of landslides.

The boy was wrapped in a yellow blanket after he emerged from a tunnel dug specifically for the rescue, and was immediately taken by ambulance to a helicopter where he was transported to the nearest hospital, shortly before the palace issued the statement confirming his death.

Earlier, the king affirmed that he was closely following the developments and had issued instructions to all concerned authorities to take the necessary measures and to exhaust all efforts to save his life.




Medics and rescuers inspect the body of Rayan Awram after he was extracted from the well on Feb. 5, 2022. (REUTERS/Abdelhak Balhaki)

King Mohammed also expressed his appreciation for the tireless efforts made by the rescue teams, as well as the collective activities and strong support from various Moroccan groups and families during this painful occasion.The boy was pulled out Saturday night by rescuers after a lengthy, delicate and dangerous operation that captivated global attention.

Workers with mechanical diggers had been trying round the clock to rescue the 5-year-old child, Rayan Awram, after he fell into a 32-meter (100-foot) deep well in the hills near Chefchaouen on Tuesday.

“We hope we will not encounter rocks,” lead rescuer Abdelhadi Tamrani told reporters at the site on Saturday afternoon, while there were still several meters left to dig.




Rescuers stand near the hole of a well into which a five-year-old boy fell in the northern hill town of Chefchaouen, Morocco on Feb. 5, 2022. (Reuters)

His parents had been escorted to an ambulance before the boy emerged. His plight had captured worldwide attention.

Online messages of support and concern for the boy poured in from around the world as the rescue efforts dragged through the night.

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. But we hope to God that the child is alive.”

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Tamrani said it was difficult to determine the child’s health condition because a camera that has been dropped down the well showed him lying on his side, but he added “we hope we will rescue him alive.”

The Red Crescent also confirmed that it had been providing oxygen continuously to the little boy since Tuesday evening.




A view shows a well into which a five-year-old boy fell in the northern hill town of Chefchaouen, Morocco on Feb. 5, 2022. (Reuters)

Rescue crews, using bulldozers and front-end loaders, excavated the surrounding red earth down to the level where the boy was trapped and dug horizontally toward him, by hand.

They faced a risk of landslides, and on Saturday had to maneuver around a large rock which blocked their way.

Earlier in the darkness, crews had moved a heavy pipe into position in the area. One rescuer lugged what appeared to be a jackhammer.

A glacial cold had gripped this mountainous and impoverished region of the Rif, which is at an elevation of about 700 meters (2,300 feet).

Thousands of people had gathered and even camped in solidarity around the site in recent days and onlookers applauded to encourage the rescuers, sang religious songs or prayed, chanting in unison “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).




People gather as rescuers work to reach a five-year-old boy trapped in a well in the northern hill town of Chefchaouen, Morocco Feb. 5, 2022. (Reuters)

The shaft, just 45 centimeters (18 inches) across, was too narrow to reach Rayan, and widening it was deemed too risky — so earth-movers dug a wide slope into the hill to reach him from the side.

The operation has made the landscape resemble a construction site. It involves engineers and topographers, and was made more complex by the mix of rocky and sandy soils.

“I keep up hope that my child will get out of the well alive,” Rayan’s father told public television 2M on Friday evening. “I thank everyone involved and those supporting us in Morocco and elsewhere.”

He said earlier in the week that he had been repairing the well when the boy fell in.




A view shows the site where rescuers are working to reach a five-year-old boy trapped in a well in the northern hill town of Chefchaouen, Morocco on Feb. 5, 2022. (SNRT News/Reuters)

The drama has sparked an outpouring of sympathy online, with the trending Arabic hashtag #SaveRayan.

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

Another paid tribute to rescue workers working around the clock for days, saying, “they are real-life heroes.”

A male relative of the boy told Reuters TV that the family had first realized he was missing when they heard muffled crying and lowered a phone with its light and camera on to locate him.

“He was crying ‘lift me up’,” the relative said.

(With Reuters and AFP)


US military move aircraft and ships from bases in the Middle East

Updated 7 sec ago
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US military move aircraft and ships from bases in the Middle East

  • Senior US officials preparing for the possibility of a strike on Iran in the coming days – Bloomberg report
  • Move of aircraft and ships a part of plans as ‘force protection is the priority’

WASHINGTON: The US military has moved some aircraft and ships from bases in the Middle East that may be vulnerable to any potential Iranian attack, two US officials said on Wednesday.

The moves come as President Donald Trump kept the world guessing whether the United States would join Israel’s bombardment of Iran’s nuclear and missile sites, as residents fled its capital on the sixth day of the air assault.

Senior US officials are preparing for the possibility of a strike on Iran in the coming days, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report, citing the people, noted that the situation is still evolving and could change. Some of the people, according to Bloomberg, pointed to potential plans for a weekend strike.

Speaking to reporters earlier on Wednesday outside the White House, Trump declined to say if he had made any decision on whether to join Israel’s campaign. “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.

Separately, the US embassy in Qatar issued an alert on Thursday temporarily restricting its personnel from accessing the Al-Udeid Air Base, the largest US military installation in the Middle East, which is located in the desert outside Doha.

The embassy told personnel and US citizens in Qatar to step up vigilance in “an abundance of caution and in light of ongoing regional hostilities.”

The two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the move of aircraft and ships was a part of plans to protect US forces, but declined to say how many had been moved and where to.

One of the officials said aircraft that were not in hardened shelters had been moved from Al-Udeid base and naval vessels had been moved from a port in Bahrain, where the military’s 5th fleet is located.

“It is not an uncommon practice,” the official added. “Force protection is the priority.”

Reuters was first to report this week the movement of a large number of tanker aircraft to Europe and other military assets to the Middle East, including the deployment of more fighter jets.

An aircraft carrier in the Indo-Pacific is also heading to the Middle East.

Israel launched an air war on Friday after saying it had concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran has conveyed to Washington that it will respond firmly to the United States if the latter becomes directly involved in Israel’s military campaign, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on Wednesday.


Israel says hospital in south hit after Iran missile attack

Updated 16 min 8 sec ago
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Israel says hospital in south hit after Iran missile attack

  • ‘A direct hit has been reported at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel’
  • Iranian media reported a new barrage of missiles as rivals trade fire for a seventh day

JERUSALEM/TEHRAN: Israel’s foreign ministry reported a direct hit on a hospital in the south on Thursday, after Iran fired a fresh salvo of missiles at the country.

“BREAKING: A direct hit has been reported at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel. More details to follow,” the foreign ministry posted on X.

A spokesperson for the hospital reported “damage to the hospital and extensive damage in various areas. We are currently assessing the damage, including injuries. We ask the public not to come to the hospital at this time.”

Iranian media reported a new barrage of missiles as the rivals traded fire for a seventh day on Thursday.

“The missiles roared over Tel Aviv,” the Iranian news agency Fars reported, while state television broadcast live images of the commercial hub.


Israel strikes Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, state television says

Updated 29 min 26 sec ago
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Israel strikes Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, state television says

  • Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors and produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons

DUBAI: Israel has attacked Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor, Iranian state television said Thursday.

The report said there was “no radiation danger whatsoever” and that the facility had already been evacuated before the attack.

Israel had warned earlier Thursday morning it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area.

The warning came in a social media post on X. It included a satellite image of the plant in a red circle like other warnings that preceded strikes.

The Israeli military said Thursday’s round of airstrikes targeted Tehran and other areas of Iran, without elaborating. It later said Iran fired a new salvo of missiles at Israel and told the public to take shelter.

Israel’s seventh day of airstrikes on Iran came a day after Iran’s supreme leader rejected US calls for surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.” Israel also lifted some restrictions on daily life, suggesting the missile threat from Iran on its territory was easing.

Already, Israel’s campaign has targeted Iran’s enrichment site at Natanz, centrifuge workshops around Tehran and a nuclear site in Isfahan. Its strikes have also killed top generals and nuclear scientists.

A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded. In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds. Some have hit apartment buildings in central Israel, causing heavy damage.

The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers southwest of Tehran.

Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.

Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.

In 2019, Iran started up the heavy water reactor’s secondary circuit, which at the time did not violate Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Britain at the time was helping Iran redesign the Arak reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces, stepping in for the US, which had withdrawn from the project after President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw America from the nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. IAEA inspectors reportedly last visited Arak on May 14.

Due to restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has said it lost “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s heavy water production — meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran’s production and stockpile.

As part of negotiations around the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to sell off its heavy water to the West to remain in compliance with the accord’s terms. Even the US purchased some 32 tons of heavy water for over $8 million in one deal. That was one issue that drew criticism from opponents to the deal.


Trump keeps world guessing about US military action against Iran

Updated 47 min 23 sec ago
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Trump keeps world guessing about US military action against Iran

  • ‘I may do it. I may not do it,’ Trump says on joining attacks
  • Netanyahu says Israel ‘progressing step by step’ toward eliminating Iranian nuclear, missile threats

WASHINGTON/DUBAI/JERUSALEM: President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the United States will join Israel’s bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites as the Israel-Iran conflict entered its seventh day on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump declined to say if he had made any decision on whether to join Israel’s campaign. “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.

Trump in later remarks said Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting and that “we may do that.” But he added, “It’s a little late” for such talks.

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva aimed at persuading Iran to firmly guarantee that it will use its nuclear program solely for civilian purposes, a German diplomatic source told Reuters.

But while diplomatic efforts continue, some residents of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, on Wednesday jammed highways out of the city as they sought sanctuary from intensified Israeli airstrikes.

The Wall Street Journal said Trump had told senior aides he approved attack plans on Iran but was holding off on giving the final order to see if Tehran would abandon its nuclear program.

Asked if he thought the Iranian government could fall as a result of the Israeli campaign, Trump said: “Sure, anything could happen.”

Referring to the destruction or dismantling of Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment center, Trump said: “We’re the only ones that have the capability to do it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it — at all.”

Military analysts believe that Israel might need US military help to destroy Fordow, dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, rebuked Trump in a recorded speech played on television, his first appearance since Friday.

The Americans “should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” he said. “The Iranian nation will not surrender.”

In its latest bombings, Israel said its air force destroyed Iran’s police headquarters.

Israel’s military said sirens sounded in northern Israel just before 2 a.m. local time on Thursday  and that it had intercepted a drone launched from Iran. It said several minutes later that another drone was intercepted in the Jordan Valley area.

The Iranian missile salvoes mark the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defenses, killing Israelis in their homes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a video released by his office on Wednesday, said Israel was “progressing step by step” toward eliminating threats posed by Iran’s nuclear sites and ballistic missile arsenal.

“We are hitting the nuclear sites, the missiles, the headquarters, the symbols of the regime,” Netanyahu said.

Israel, which is not a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty, is the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

Netanyahu also thanked Trump, “a great friend of the state of Israel,” for standing by its side in the conflict, saying the two were in continuous contact.

Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it.

In social media posts on Tuesday, he mused about killing Khamenei.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked what his reaction would be if Israel did kill Iran’s Supreme Leader with the assistance of the United States, said on Thursday: “I do not even want to discuss this possibility. I do not want to.”

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear installations.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations mocked Trump in posts on X, describing him as “a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance.”

Israel’s military said scores of Israeli jets had struck targets in and around Tehran and in western Iran in the previous 24 hours in three waves, hitting sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles.

Fleeing Tehran

Arezou, a 31-year-old Tehran resident, told Reuters by phone that she had made it out of the city to the nearby resort town of Lavasan.

“My friend’s house in Tehran was attacked and her brother was injured. They are civilians,” she said. “Why are we paying the price for the regime’s decision to pursue a nuclear program?”

In Israel, sirens rang out anew at dusk on Wednesday warning of further incoming Iranian missiles. A motorist was injured by missile debris, Israeli medics said. The army later advised civilians they could leave protected areas, signalling the threat had passed.

At Ramat Gan train station east of Tel Aviv, people were lying on city-supplied mattresses or sitting in the odd camping chair, with plastic water bottles strewn about.

“I feel scared, overwhelmed. Especially because I live in a densely populated area that Iran seems to be targeting, and our city has very old buildings, without shelters and safe spaces,” said Tamar Weiss, clutching her four-month-old daughter.

Iran has reported at least 224 deaths in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has not updated that toll for days.

Since Friday, Iran has fired around 400 missiles at Israel, some 40 of which have pierced air defenses, killing 24 people, all of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

Leverage

Iran has been exploring options for leverage, including veiled threats to hit the global oil market by restricting access to the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important shipping artery for oil.

Inside Iran, authorities are intent on preventing panic and shortages. Fewer images of destruction have been allowed to circulate than in the early days of the bombing, when state media showed pictures of explosions, fires and flattened apartments. A ban on filming by the public has been imposed.

The communications ministry said on Wednesday that temporary restrictions on Internet access would be imposed to help prevent “the enemy from threatening citizens’ lives and property.”

Iran’s ability to hit back hard at Israel through strikes by proxy militia close to Israeli borders has been limited by the devastating blows Israel has dealt to Tehran’s regional allies — Hamas and Hezbollah — in conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon since 2023.


Iraqi foreign minister calls for emergency meeting of Arab counterparts next week

Updated 18 June 2025
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Iraqi foreign minister calls for emergency meeting of Arab counterparts next week

  • Its aim would be to coordinate Arab positions on the escalating military confrontation between Israel and Iran
  • Fuad Hussein suggests it take place during the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s Council of Foreign Ministers session that begins in Istanbul on Saturday

LONDON: Iraq’s foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, on Wednesday called for an emergency meeting of his Arab counterparts to discuss the conflict between Israel and Iran, which he said poses destabilizing risks to the wider Middle East.

He suggested it take place on the sidelines of the 51st session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s Council of Foreign Ministers, which is due to begin in Istanbul on Saturday. The aim of the emergency meeting would be to coordinate Arab positions on the escalation of the military confrontation between Israel and Iran, who have been exchanging attacks since Friday.

Also on Wednesday, Hussein called his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, to discuss the conflict and its repercussions for the security and stability of the region, officials said. Iraq currently chairs the Arab League, which held its most recent summit in Baghdad in May. Egypt hosts the League’s headquarters in Cairo.