Rescuers were working on Saturday to free a 10-year-old boy who fell into an 80-metre-deep well in southwestern Algeria, civil protection authorities said.
The rescue operation has drawn widespread attention across the country, and social media has been awash with calls to save the boy, whom authorities have identified only as Ayoub.
Teams have been working for four days to reach Ayoub after he fell into the well near his home in the desert municipality of Brezina in El Bayadh province, some 550 kilometres (340 miles) south of Algiers.
Rescuers have said they were struggling to reach him because he was “trapped beneath a thick layer of soil”.
The civil protection said the well was dry and dug using traditional methods, and was only 40 centimetres in diameter, which made efforts to rescue Ayoub difficult.
Images released by authorities and local media showed heavy machinery digging a large pit alongside the well to reach the boy.
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