KABUL: A boy trapped down a well for over three days in southern Afghanistan died moments after he was recovered on Friday, officials said, following a rescue effort that had gripped the nation.
Officials said the child, Haidar, was still alive when rescuers managed to pull him out of the well in Shokak village, Zabul province, before noon.
A medical team then scrambled to provide him first aid and oxygen, but he died as they attempted to move him to a helicopter headed for Kabul for urgent treatment.
“Unfortunately we lost Haidar, with all the efforts that were made for his rescue he didn’t last long,” Zabiullah Jawhar, Zabul Police spokesperson, told Arab News.
Anas Haqqani, senior advisor at the Taliban-run Interior Ministry, took to Twitter to announce the boy’s death.
“With great sorrow, young Haidar is separated from us forever. Our country hosts another day with mourn and sorrow,” he wrote.
The tragic incident in Shokak village comes less than two weeks after a boy died in Morocco after getting trapped in a well for four days.
On Tuesday Haidar slipped to the bottom of the 25-meter well, but was pulled by a rope to about 10 meters from the surface before becoming stuck.
Rescuers had worked non-stop to save the boy, believed to be six-years-old, with senior officials from the Taliban’s newly installed government overseeing the rescue operations, including Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid.
Videos circulating online on Thursday showed the boy wedged in the well, but able to move his arms and upper body.
“Are you okay my son?” his father was heard saying in footage shared on social media. “Talk with me and don’t cry, we are working to get you out.”
“Okay, I’ll keep talking,” the boy replied.
However, Haidar had stopped responding on Friday morning, as rescuers attempted to work through a large rock that was blocking their final access to the shaft. This came after engineers dug an open slit trench using bulldozers from an angle at the surface to reach the boy.
The operation employed similar engineering measures to those used by rescuers in Morocco earlier this month when “little Rayan” fell down a 32-meter well, dying five days later.
