 "From Thai cave to Afghan well: When rescue efforts to save children captivated the world")
Paris: As an Afghan boy trapped down a well for three days dies moments after being pulled out alive, we look at other similar rescue dramas involving children.
Few had happy endings.
Trapped Spanish toddler
The body of two-year-old boy Julen Rosello was found in a deep well in southern Spain on 26 January 2019, 13 days after the boy toddled into a 100-metre (330 feet) shaft.
Hundreds of people worked round-the-clock under the media glare to try to reach him after he fell while his parents prepared lunch in Totalan, a town near Malaga.
Rescuers dug a vertical shaft parallel to the well, 60 metres deep. Miners then dug a four-metre tunnel to join both with the help of four small controlled explosions.
But the boy was dead when they reached him and a post-mortem found the child died the day he fell.
Thai football team
A Thai youth football team and their coach got stuck in floodwaters in the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand on 23 June, 2018, emerging alive 18 nail-biting days later after a rescue effort that made headlines across the globe.
Around 10,000 Thai and foreign volunteers were involved in the dangerous and logistically difficult rescue mission, with the ups and downs entrancing the world.
In the end, divers carefully sedated the young players before extracting them through the narrow, flooded passageways.
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View AllCelebrities including football star Lionel Messi and tech guru Elon Musk queued up to offer help and support, with US president Donald Trump tweeting at the end, “Such a beautiful moment — all freed, great job!”
Icon of Colombia eruption
A volcanic eruption that sparked a mudslide that wiped out the Colombian city of Armero in November 1985 is still remembered for the wide black eyes of its most iconic victim, Omayra Sanchez.
The 13-year-old girl was trapped up to her neck in mud for three days as rescue workers tried to free her, her agony covered live on television.
With her body held fast below the waist by fallen beams, all efforts to free her failed, and she died of exhaustion on 16 November.
But the footage of Omayra pinned down in a pool of muddy water caused an outcry over the government’s failure to deal with a disaster that killed more than 25,000 people.
Tragedy of ‘Little Rayan’
On 1 February, the world was gripped again when a five-year-old Moroccan boy called Rayan fell down a narrow, 32-metre (100-foot) dry well in the north of the country.
Rescuers spent five days using earthmovers to reach him with the hashtag #SaveRayan trending across the Arab world, but joy turned to grief when they realised he was already dead.
Afghan boy
Five-year-old Afghan boy Haidar was trapped for three days in 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.
Rescuers managed to reach him Friday and give him oxygen but he died five minutes later while being carried to a helicopter.
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