The death of a 5-year-old boy trapped for days in the dark depths of a well symbolizes for many villagers a curse that haunts their remote mountainous region in northern Morocco: dirt poor, neglected and dependent on its illegal cannabis crop to survive.
The well that swallowed Rayan was dug by his father in a vain bid to forage for water so he could grow cannabis, or marijuana. Rayan’s mother, Wassima Khersheesh, bitterly referred to the well that took her son as “that hole of dust.”
