The vigil had lasted for four days, transfixing tens of thousands of people around the world who watched, tweeted, cheered and prayed as a small band of rescuers in a tiny Moroccan village tried to free a 5-year-old boy from the deep well into which he had plunged.
#SaveRayan, they pleaded.
On Saturday night, workers, who had dug a rescue tunnel, finally reached Rayan Oram, the boy. But the medical helicopter that had been waiting for days to take him to a hospital had no need to take off. He was dead.
United for days in hope, Moroccans, and others in northwest Africa, were suddenly united in grief.
“I wanted to believe that miracles still happen,” said Mehdi Idrissi, 32, a doctor in the Moroccan city of Fez who followed the rescue effort for days, doubting that Rayan could survive his ordeal but clinging to optimism. “As a country, we needed a bit of hope, and even though the ending was tragic, it did bring us all together. May he rest in peace.”
At some points during the operation, more than 100,000 people were monitoring one of the livestreams that showed the trench where the rescuers, working day and night, were digging by bulldozer and by hand. Thousands more followed along on other livestreams and on social media, not only Moroccans but also Algerians, others from North Africa and people in France, where there is a large diaspora from the Maghreb, the Francophone region of North Africa.
Source: National News Agency
