Most of us followed with hope and also with fear attempts to rescue a boy who got stuck in a well 32 metres deep in Morocco in the past few days.
Sorry to say, five-year-old Rayan died only minutes after he was got out of the well on Saturday by rescue workers who did everything possible to save his life.
The rescue workers employed all tricks to prevent the soil from collapsing and burying the body under it over five days of continual work.
Rayan’s death gave us pain and made us cry. His plight, efforts to rescue him, and his sorry death were the talk of most of us in the Arab region and probably outside it.
Nevertheless, this unfortunate event has revived something in us. It revived our humanity and appreciation for life, things years of suffering in a region that saw more than its fill of death and tragedies have killed in us.
Killing and bloodshed became common occurrences in our region in the past years. We have become so accustomed to scenes of bloodshed and fighting that the death of humans could no longer shock us or make us raise our eyebrows.
However, Rayan’s death has suddenly come to unite us. It has come to remind us that humans are too precious and their life is too sacred.
The same death has come to make us realise that humanity is still alive in us. There has been an outpouring of sadness over the death of the boy and this sadness is proof enough that we can all – as humans – be united behind one cause, namely the cause of life and the right of each and every one of us to live, regardless of age, religion, or colour.
Rayan’s death should perhaps function as a wakeup call for all of us. It should invite our attention to the lives that are lost everywhere around the world because of wars, conflicts, the struggle for resources, or because of droughts and famines.
We sat thousands of miles away from where Rayan was stuck in his well. Each and every one of us had hoped to be present in the same spot to contribute to the rescue effort. Nevertheless, each and every one of us was keen to ensure that he did his duty towards the boy, at least by praying.
Let’s imagine for a second that each and every one of us will do the same towards our other brothers and sisters in humanity who might be at this moment similarly stuck thousands of miles away in wars, or famine or sleeping in the open in a biting cold weather in their refugee camps.
The unity and the humanity Rayan has revived in us should not be short-lived. They can change the world, if they live for long or survive the Moroccan boy’s unfortunate death.
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