A five-year-old boy trapped for three days in a deep dry well in southeastern Afghanistan died on Friday shortly after being pulled alive by rescuers.
Haji Abdul Hadi, 50, the grandfather of the child identified as Haidar, told the AFP news agency that the boy fell on Tuesday (15) as he accompanied adults to drill a new well in Shokak, in Zabul province (400 km from Kabul), drought-affected region.
According to official sources, Haidar reached the bottom of a 25-meter-deep hole, managed to be lifted by a cut to 10 meters, but ended up blocked by a large rock. Rescuers then had to manually advance with pickaxes, making the rescue take longer to complete.
Faced with the difficulty, the rescue teams opened a large oblique ditch to gain access to the place where the boy was. As they approached the well, however, they had to act very carefully to avoid landslides. The rocky terrain also made the operation difficult.
Thus, rescuers managed to reach the child only this Friday. Police spokesman Zabiullah Jawahr said Haidar was still alive. Medical staff provided oxygen, but the boy died as they tried to get him to the helicopter.
The team was supervised by representatives of the Taliban government, while hundreds of locals gathered nearby to accompany the rescue. The country’s government tried to send rescuers the best equipment available, including one of the few operable helicopters to rescue Haidar.
Several Taliban officials released videos of the operation, highlighting the new regime’s efforts to care for the population, after criticism of human rights violations. Interior Ministry senior adviser Anas Haqqani wrote on Twitter that this Friday “is a new day of mourning and sadness” for the country.
Images circulating on social media showed the boy dressed in a blue sweater at the bottom of the well, with his back against the wall, visibly moving his arms and upper body. It was also possible to observe a lamp positioned in front of the child.
The videos were recorded with a camera suspended with a rope. In one of them, the boy cries and, in another, he talks to his father. “Haidar, talk to me, we’re trying to get you out. Are you okay, my son? Talk to me, don’t cry, we’re working to get you out,” the father said. “Okay, I’ll keep talking,” replied the boy, crying.
The tragedy in Afghanistan comes just days after a similar one in Morocco, where five-year-old Rayan Awran fell into a well and died before being rescued. The country stopped to follow the operation.
He was trapped for five days in a tunnel in the hills of the province of Chefchaouen. The well is 45 centimeters wide at the top and narrows to a depth of 32 meters.
“Rayan was playing and then disappeared. The whole family mobilized to look for him until we realized that he had fallen into the well”, said the mother, in tears, at the time. A relative said that the family heard a muffled cry and was able to identify the boy in the tunnel with the help of his cell phone flashlight.
