BREAKING: 5-year-old Moroccan boy dies after he was trapped in well for days

A royal statement announced the young boy's death soon after he was extracted from the 104-foot well by rescuers Saturday evening, BBC reported.

"Following the tragic accident which cost the life of the child Rayan Oram, His Majesty King Mohammed VI called the parents of the boy who died after falling down the well," the official statement from the royal palace said.

The painstaking efforts to rescue the boy, identified as Rayan Oram, made international headlines, with hundreds gathered at the dry well and thousand watching the tragic event unfold online. Saturday's apparent rescue was first met with cheers from the surrounding crowd before news of the boy's death broke.

Prayers erupted from the present onlookers and those watching the live stream of the small northern Morocco village of Ighran. The chaotic scene showed medics carrying the boy on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

Rayan had plunged through the well's narrow opening earlier in the week. Fear of a landslide had delayed initial rescue attempts before the week-long endeavour. Rescue operations led by Morocco's Civil Protection Directorate in the small northern town of Tamorot began Tuesday evening.

A camera sent down the shaft showed early imagery of Rayan alive but bloodied and breathing heavily. The hashtag #SaveRayan trended across the country and beyond borders on social media before the jubilation turned to widespread heartbreak. Twitter users began paying tribute and expressing condolences with the same hashtag.