After nerve-wracking days, hope is growing in Morocco that five-year-old Rayan, who has been trapped in a deep well since Tuesday afternoon, can be rescued alive.

Under the most difficult conditions, the salvage crews dug the entire night for a connecting tunnel to the 32 meter deep tunnel.

"We're almost there," said Abdesalam Makoudi, one of the leaders of the campaign, on Saturday.

But the progress in the last few meters was minimal.

Little Rayan accidentally fell into the narrow, dry well near his parents' home in a remote village in the north of the country on Tuesday.

The accident happened "in a moment of inattention," Rayan's father told local media;

he just wanted to repair the well.

Since the well has a diameter of no more than 45 centimeters, the rescue workers could not go directly down into the well.

Instead, they dug a 28 meter deep hole by Friday and then began work on a connecting tunnel to the well.

Meanwhile, they brought water and oxygen to the bottom of the well via hoses.

But the concern about the condition of the five-year-old grew with every passing hour.

Rescue team struggles with fatigue

The teams continued the drilling work throughout Saturday night and in the freezing cold.

Because of the complicated terrain and the risk of landslides, they made slow progress.

However, after three hours in the morning, they managed to maneuver around a large boulder.

Tiredness is now spreading, "but the entire rescue team is holding out," reported Makoudi.

Coordinator Abdelhadi Tamrani told state television station 2M that he had "high hopes" that Rayan survived the ordeal.

The whole of Morocco follows the fate of the little boy with great interest.

Thousands of people have gathered at the scene of the accident for days, and many stayed overnight despite the cold.

On Friday, the police finally erected metal barriers so that the rescue workers would not be hindered in their work.

The incident, which also causes sympathy worldwide, is reminiscent of the fate of two-year-old Julen in Spain in 2019: the boy fell 100 meters deep into a borehole with a diameter of only 25 centimeters.

After 13 days, however, he could only be rescued lifeless.