"With great sorrow..": 5-year-old Afghan boy trapped in well dies
After being stuck in a well for 3 days, Taliban authorities have announced the death of a five-year-old Afghan child.
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Locals gather as rescuers try to reach the trapped boy (AFP)
Afghan officials announced Friday that a five-year-old kid who had been stranded for three days down a well in a remote village died moments after being rescued alive.
Haidar fell into a well being dug in Shokak, a parched village in Zabul province, around 400 kilometers southwest of Kabul's capital.
Taliban interior ministry senior adviser Anas Haqqani tweeted: “With great sorrow, young Haidar is separated from us forever.”
The boy was clinging to life when rescuers arrived, according to Zabul police spokesperson Zabiullah Jawhar.
"In the first minutes after the rescue operation was completed, he was breathing, and the medical team gave him oxygen," he added.
"When the medical team tried to carry him to the helicopter, he lost his life."
The incident comes two weeks after a similar attempt to save a boy from a Moroccan well captivated the world — but the child was found dead. The tragedy of "little Rayan" went viral and generated an outpouring of sorrow on social media, with the Arabic Twitter hashtag #SaveRayan trending.
Haji Abdul Hadi, Haidar's grandpa, told AFP that the kid slipped into the well while trying to "help" adults drill a new borehole in the drought-stricken community.
Officials said he plummeted to the bottom of the small 25-meter shaft and was dragged approximately 10-meters by rope before becoming lodged.
Hundreds of locals watched the rescue effort in Shokak, which was overseen by senior officials from the Taliban's freshly constituted administration.
Some Taliban leaders shared videos of the difficult operation to showcase how the new regime will spare nothing to care for its citizens.
The child was shown trapped in the well but able to move his arms and upper body in a video released on social media on Thursday.
إِنَّا ِلِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ
— девушка мафии 🇦🇫 (@Dokht_e_Kabul) February 18, 2022
May Allah swt bless his soul and grant him the highest rank in jannah. All our prayers are with him 😔 and may he find peace in jannah 💔 #Haidar #Afganistanchildren #Afghanistan 💔🇦🇫 pic.twitter.com/YJJmzwCF6C
"Are you okay my son?" his desperate father asked. "Talk with me and don't cry, we are working to get you out."
"Okay, I'll keep talking," the boy responds.
To reach the point where Haidar was trapped, engineers used bulldozers to dig an open slit trench from an angle near the surface.
On Friday morning, workmen used pickaxes to blast through a big boulder that was blocking the final few meters but it seems their noble efforts only served to give the boy a few moments to see the light of day before passing away.
