A five-year-old boy trapped for three days down a well in a remote Afghan village has died, several Taliban officials have said.
The child, named Haidar, slipped to the bottom of a well being dug in Shokak, a village in Zabul province, around 400km southwest of the capital Kabul, on Tuesday.
Rescuers worked non-stop to try to reach the boy, who officials said was still alive earlier this morning - before later announcing he had died.
"With great sorrow, young Haidar is separated from us forever," said Taliban interior ministry senior adviser Anas Haqqani, in a tweet echoed by several of his colleagues.
The operation comes around two weeks after a similar attempt to rescue a boy from a Moroccan well gripped the world, but ended with the child found dead.
