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People stand next to the grave of five-year-old Rayan Mosa’ab Elshamy via PA Images
Morocco

Funeral held for five-year-old boy who died after being trapped in well in Morocco

Rayan was pulled out of the 105ft-deep well on Saturday after being trapped for five days.

A FUNERAL HAS taken place in Morocco for a five-year-old boy who was trapped in a well for days as rescuers struggled to reach him.

The strenuous operation drew global attention, and mourners sent messages of condolences from around the world.

Rayan was pulled out of the 105ft-deep dry well on Saturday after being trapped for five days.

The funeral took place after noontime prayers today in Ighran, a village in Morocco’s mountainous north.

The boy was laid to rest in a plot where other family members are buried at the hilltop Zawiya cemetery, four miles from the village.

Scores of mourners from around Morocco flocked to the funeral to pay their respects.

In a sign of how Rayan’s fate had gripped the country, King Mohammed VI followed the painstaking rescue efforts closely, and expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents in a statement released by the palace over the weekend.

Workers have now started filing in the massive hole and tunnel that they dug to try to rescue him.

The exact circumstances of how the boy fell in the well are unclear.