Afghanistan: Six-year-old boy rescued from well dies

A boy who was trapped in an Afghanistan well for four days has died.

Rescuers had pulled the six-year-old boy named Haider from the well on Friday afternoon after working round the clock to rescue him.

But a local journalist told the BBC that the boy was unresponsive and not breathing when he was pulled out of the well in the southern Zabul province.

Rescuers had reported that there had been no sound coming out of the well since Thursday.

Haider had been trapped in the well in the village of Shokak after falling off a road on Tuesday, an official from Zabul’s information and culture department told BBC Pashto.

The boy became wedged about 10m (33ft) down the shaft, which is thought to be around 25m (33ft) deep, the AFP news agency reported.

Rescuers dug a trench into the ground to reach the boy.

“With great sorrow, young Haidar is separated from us forever,” said Taliban interior ministry senior adviser Anas Haqqani in a tweet.

The operation comes less than two weeks after a boy died in Morocco after getting trapped in a well for four days.