Boy trapped for three days in Afghan well has died: Taliban officials

Rescuers worked through the night to try to reach a five-year-old boy trapped for three days in an Afghan well, but Taliban officials said on Friday that the child has died.

The boy, named Haidar, slipped Tuesday to the bottom of a well being dug in Shokak, a parched village in Zabul province, around 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of the capital Kabul.

The news comes around two weeks after a similar attempt to rescue a boy from a Moroccan well gripped the world — but ended with the child found dead.

“The rescue operation continued all night,” Zabul police spokesman Zabiullah Jawhar told AFP Friday.

“The rescue team has faced a new obstacle and a rock is preventing them from digging more. We are concerned that dust could fall on the boy, and probably we would lose him, so we are working carefully.”

The boy’s grandfather, 50-year-old Haji Abdul Hadi, told AFP Haidar fell down the well when he was trying to “help” the adults dig a new borehole in the drought-ravaged village.

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Officials said the boy slipped to the bottom of the 25-metre (80-foot) shaft, but was pulled by rope to about 10-metres before becoming stuck.

Senior officials from the Taliban’s newly installed government were overseeing rescue operations in Shokak, watched by hundreds of curious villagers.

• MENA