In a small village south of Aleppo, the story of six-year-old Walid Wahid Al-Khalif did not end the moment he fell into a water well.
To this day, his grandfather, Walid Al-Suwaidan Al-Sarhan, sits beside the very well that swallowed him. In silence, he runs his hands over the soil, struggling to comprehend how the family’s long-awaited return home after years of displacement turned into an open-ended tragedy.
Since 2017, the Al-Sarhans had lived in forced displacement after fleeing their village of Mazraat Al-Sarhan, in the Tal Al-Daman district between south of Aleppo and northern rural Idlib. Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, they finally returned home, hoping to rebuild the life they had lost. They began repairing their house, worn down by years of bombardment and neglect, believing that their suffering was finally coming to an end.
But on March 2, 2026, Walid accompanied his uncle, who had taken the family’s sheep to graze in the fields surrounding the village. The young boy, deeply attached to his uncle, followed him with small steps across farmland the family had not seen since their displacement years earlier.
“We adults didn’t even know there was a well in that field,” his grandfather told the investigation team. “It had been dug during the war.”
In a matter of seconds, Walid disappeared.
The child stepped onto a thin metal sheet covered with small stones. The makeshift cover gave way beneath his weight, sending him plunging into a narrow well just 40 centimetres wide and nearly 80 metres deep.
“His uncle told us the boy vanished in the blink of an eye,” his grandfather recalled. “He was simply gone.”
For hours, rescue teams tried every possible method to reach the child. Every additional metre underground increased the risk of the well collapsing and consumed precious time the rescuers simply did not have.
Gradually, what began as a rescue operation turned into an impossible mission. Despite attempts to dig a parallel shaft, large rocks lodged 20 to 30 metres below the surface blocked any access to the child.
Ibrahim Al-Hassan, head of the Search and Rescue Department of the Syrian Civil Defence (White Helmets), described the incident as one of the most complex rescue operations his teams had handled in recent months.
“A large rock fell into the well after the child and became lodged at a depth of around 30 metres,” he recalled. “It prevented us from reaching him despite using cameras and various search techniques.”
Today, Walid’s grandfather asks for only one thing: no other child suffers the same fate.
Looking toward his grandson’s grave, he says quietly: “An open well is a death trap for children.”
Deep beneath dozens of metres of earth and rock, the child still rests where he fell months ago. The well that claimed his life became his final resting place.
The grandfather says the owners of the well offered the family blood money (diya) after Walid’s death, but they refused.
“Our only request,” he said, “was that they leave a path leading to Walid’s grave, so we can visit him and mourn him whenever we miss him.”
Open Wells Left Behind by War
Walid’s death was not an isolated tragedy.
As SIRAJ investigated child falls into wells across northern Syria to assess the scale of a largely overlooked threat to children, particularly in agricultural areas, it became clear that what happened in Mazraat Al-Sarhan is being repeated in other parts of the country.
The investigation was based on extensive field reporting across the governorates of Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama. Journalists visited the sites where children had fallen into wells, interviewed victims’ families, survivors, and members of the Syrian Civil Defence, and reviewed legal documents, photographs, and rescue videos, verifying them through both field reporting and digital analysis.
The team also obtained official statistics covering well-related accidents over the past three years. It documented testimonies from 56 farmers describing how wells and underground cisterns had been looted during the war and left open and unsecured.
In Arabic, the words bi’r (well) and jubb (plural: jubab) are closely related but differ in usage. A bi’r refers generally to any excavation dug to access groundwater, while a jubb typically describes a deep, dark, often abandoned well lacking protective infrastructure. Historically, the term has also been used to describe a pit where objects—or even people were concealed.
Across northern Syria, hundreds of abandoned, damaged and unsecured wells and underground cisterns have become an escalating danger to children. Years of war, displacement, and the looting of infrastructure have left many of these sites uncovered and unprotected, while rescue and Civil Defence teams continue to operate with limited resources.
“The capabilities currently available are still insufficient to deal with this type of complex rescue operation,” said a relative of a child who fell into a well in the village of Tal Awar, south of Idlib.
“The Civil Defence does not have enough equipment for these operations. We need advanced cameras capable of reaching great depths, oxygen supply systems that can operate down to 100 metres, and more rescue ropes, the most essential tool used during these missions.”
A Split-Second Fall
On the morning of March 2, 2026, while Walid’s family in Mazraat Al-Sarhan waited for a miracle that would never come, another tragedy was unfolding more than 100 kilometres away in the eastern countryside of Hama.
In the village of Halban, the family of Dam’a Al-Baroush had barely begun to feel safe again after returning to their home following more than two and a half years of displacement from the Salamiyah area. Their long-awaited homecoming soon turned into the beginning of another nightmare.
Just one week after returning, Dam’a, who had not yet reached her second birthday, was playing near the family home while her parents were busy with work on the roof. In a single moment, they caught a final glimpse of their daughter before she disappeared into a nearby well.
On March 2, 2026, the very same day Walid fell into the abandoned shaft, Dam’a lost her life after falling into a well approximately 110 metres deep, more than 70 metres of which were filled with water, according to her father, Miqdad Al-Baroush.
Al-Baroush recalled the first moments after the accident: “Her mother and I were on the roof when we suddenly saw Dam’a fall. We couldn’t comprehend what had happened. We jumped off the roof ourselves trying to reach her, but everything happened within seconds.”
Rescue teams arrived in about twenty minutes and launched a complex recovery operation inside the deep well.
According to the girl’s father, Syrian Civil Defence teams used every available method—including ropes, steel cables and vertical rescue techniques—in an effort to reach and save Dam’a. But the well’s extreme depth and the presence of water made the mission exceptionally difficult.
After nearly six hours, rescuers managed to recover the child. She had not survived.
The tragedy devastated not only her family but the entire village. Following Dam’a’s death, residents began sealing and securing open wells throughout the area to prevent similar accidents.
Her father concluded: “Any open well is a real danger to children. No one imagines that a single moment can be enough to lose your child forever.”
From Isolated Accidents to a Pattern
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Aleppo, Idlib and Hama have witnessed a series of similar incidents that have forced Syrian Civil Defence teams to carry out highly complex rescue operations, some lasting many hours.
The danger posed by unsecured wells extends beyond children.
Just weeks after Walid’s death, Civil Defence teams responded to another incident in the village of Tal Halawa, southeast of Idlib, where 18-year-old Ahmad Hassan Al-Mutair fell into a narrow well approximately 100 metres deep.
According to the Civil Defence, the young man remained missing for more than 24 hours before his family located the site where he had fallen and alerted rescuers. When rescue teams lowered a camera into the well, they found no signs of life. The operation continued for approximately 18 consecutive hours, after which rescuers, assisted by local residents, recovered his body from a depth of around 56 metres.
These incidents suggest that falls into wells and underground cisterns are no longer isolated accidents but an increasingly recurring danger across several parts of Syria, particularly in agricultural areas where uncovered or poorly secured wells are widespread.
The investigation team obtained exclusive statistics from Syria’s Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, which consolidated and reviewed records previously held by local institutions operating in opposition-controlled areas before the ministry’s establishment. The records cover child falls into wells over the past three years in northern Syria.
The data show that Aleppo, Idlib and Hama recorded the highest number of rescue responses related to these incidents, highlighting the scale of the problem in areas where open and unsecured wells remain widespread.
Ibrahim Al-Hassan, who supervised several of the rescue operations, said the repeated accidents are directly linked to the absence of even the most basic safety measures around open wells and deep excavations.
“Many excavation sites are left without covers, warning signs or protective barriers to keep children away,” he said. “As a result, they become permanent hazards.”
He added that preventing many of these tragedies does not necessarily require sophisticated equipment or significant financial resources. “Simple measures can save lives—placing warning signs during and after drilling, sealing well openings with metal covers or concrete slabs, or even installing barriers and large stones to prevent people from falling inside.”
Open Death Traps
As incidents continue to recur, a broader question emerges: How did hundreds of wells across northern Syria become exposed death traps? And who bears responsibility for leaving them in this condition for years?
In many agricultural areas across the countryside of Hama and Idlib, the proliferation of open wells and underground cisterns is linked to looting and the absence of basic safety measures.
Although Syria’s Water Legislation Law No. 31 of 2005 regulates the drilling and operation of wells and establishes licensing procedures, it contains no clear provisions requiring well owners—particularly on private land—to secure well openings or implement safety measures to prevent accidents and unauthorized access.
Behind the repeated tragedies, however, testimonies collected by SIRAJ reveal another factor that has significantly contributed to the problem: the systematic looting of hundreds of agricultural wells during the war, leaving them dry, abandoned and dangerously exposed.
According to testimonies and documents obtained for this investigation, following their capture of large parts of the Idlib and Hama countryside between 2019 and 2020, forces loyal to the former Syrian regime and affiliated militias dismantled and looted the equipment of hundreds of groundwater and surface wells in farming communities that depended on irrigation as their primary source of livelihood.
SIRAJ documented 56 consistent testimonies from farmers who returned to their hometowns in northern Hama after the fall of the Assad regime. They said they found their wells completely stripped after years of forced displacement.
During that period, units of the Fourth Division, commanded by Maher al-Assad, alongside the National Defence Forces (NDF), locally led by Simon Al-Wakil and Nail Al-Abdullah, maintained a long-term military presence across large parts of northern and western Hama after residents had been forcibly displaced.
In the Qalaat al-Madiq district alone, the journalists documented the looting of 638 groundwater and surface wells.
Groundwater wells are deep boreholes drilled to access underground aquifers, while surface wells are shallower excavations used to collect near-surface water to supply irrigation. According to this investigation, pumps, electrical cables, generators and metal infrastructure were removed from these wells before they were abandoned, often left open or heavily damaged in the middle of agricultural fields.
A similar pattern emerged in the town of Al-Habit in southern Idlib.
According to the head of the town’s Agricultural Association, Al-Habit contains approximately 350 groundwater wells. After returning home following years of displacement, residents found that most of the wells had either dried up, been destroyed or left open after their equipment had been looted. By then, nearly 95 percent of the town had been destroyed.
The investigation also documented the presence of former Iranian-backed militia positions in the surrounding area, including sites near the town of Ma’arrat Hurmah, where the team obtained photographs showing military compounds displaying militia flags and religious materials.
From Lifeline to Death Trap
Across the countryside of Idlib and Hama, thousands of farmers were forced to abandon their land and irrigation wells during successive waves of displacement. Many of those wells have since become abandoned, looted pits posing a danger to nearby communities.
Abdulsalam Al-Ahmad, from the Mhardeh area in northern Hama, shared one such story.
In 2006, his family drilled a 289-metre-deep agricultural well that supplied irrigation for their pistachio orchards. When regime forces advanced into the area in 2019, the family was forced to flee, leaving behind both the well and its equipment.
After the Assad regime’s fall, Al-Ahmad returned to discover that the well had been extensively looted.
“Almost nothing was left,” he said. “Even the floor tiles had been stolen.”
He purchased a new pump in an attempt to restore the well, only to discover that it had been deliberately filled with rocks, scrap metal and other debris to a depth of nearly 100 metres, making rehabilitation technically difficult and prohibitively expensive.
Faced with those conditions, Al-Ahmad abandoned the old well and drilled a new one to irrigate his land. The damaged well, however, remains open, like dozens, if not hundreds, of others that have fallen out of use after being looted or destroyed.
Testimonies from local residents, together with data collected duringthe investigation, indicate that many of the wells posing a threat to children and rural communities today were once productive agricultural wells that sustained local livelihoods before the war. Over time, however, many became deep, abandoned shafts after their owners lost the ability to restore or operate them. In the absence of any systematic efforts to seal or secure them, these wells have become permanent hazards across northern Syria’s agricultural landscape.
Seconds Between Life and Death
Not every child who fell into a well met the same fate.
In some cases, rescue teams managed to pull children from the depths before it was too late.
In the village of Tal Awar, south of Idlib, the family of Askar Al-Diab, aged seven, had been drilling a new groundwater well in June 2024, hoping to secure drinking water and irrigate their farmland.
Instead, the well they had dug in search of life nearly became a deadly trap for their own child.
On the evening of June 8, 2024, while the family was gathered outside their home, they suddenly heard Askar scream before disappearing into the open shaft.
The boy’s uncle told SIRAJ that the first moments were marked by shock before frantic calls for help began, amid fears that the child had already plunged to the bottom.
According to both the family and the Syrian Civil Defence, timing proved decisive.
The nearest Civil Defence station was only minutes away, allowing search-and-rescue teams to reach the scene almost immediately.
Rescuers later discovered that Askar had not fallen all the way to the bottom. Instead, he had become trapped approximately five metres below the surface, clinging to the steel cables and ropes connected to the water pump inside the well—an extraordinary stroke of luck that kept him alive.
Reaching him, however, was far from straightforward.
Rescue teams employed both vertical and horizontal excavation techniques alongside specialized rope-rescue equipment during a complex operation that lasted nearly four hours, while fearing that unstable soil could collapse or the child could slip deeper into the shaft.
In many such incidents, the difference between life and death amounts to only a few metres—or just a few minutes separating the arrival of rescue teams from a fatal delay.
Ultimately, rescuers succeeded in pulling Askar out alive before transferring him to Al-Rahma Hospital in the city of Darkoush, where the investigation team verified his admission to the emergency department and subsequent resuscitation and medical treatment.
Footage from the rescue operation of seven-year-old Askar Al-Diab after he fell into an artesian well in Tal Awar village, western Idlib, on June 8, 2024. Source: Syrian Civil Defence
Different Endings to the Same Story
In March 2026, Syrian Civil Defence teams operating as part of the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management carried out another rescue operation after a young girl fell into a well in northern Aleppo.
Using specialized cameras and rope systems to inspect the shaft and attempt access, rescuers eventually recovered the child—but she had already died before reaching the surface.
Only days later, a nearly identical incident unfolded in northern Aleppo—but with a different ending.
In the town of Shamarikh, a three-year-old boy fell into a well 18 metres deep. Civil Defence teams launched a delicate rescue operation using rope systems and vertical rescue equipment. Assisted by a local volunteer who descended into the well, rescuers secured the child and brought him to the surface before administering first aid and transferring him to a hospital in Azaz.
Rescue of a three-year-old child after falling into an 18-metre-deep well in Shamarikh, northern Aleppo. Source: Syrian Civil Defence
These recurring incidents highlight the extraordinary challenges faced by rescue teams operating inside narrow, deep wells, where, according to multiple rescuers interviewed by SIRAJ, every passing minute can determine whether a victim survives.
The depth of the well, its narrow diameter, unstable soil conditions, the presence of water, rocks or internal collapses all combine to make rescue operations exceptionally complex, particularly given the limited technical equipment and resources currently available.
Ibrahim Al-Hassan, head of the Search and Rescue Department at the Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management’s Civil Defence, says the greatest obstacle often begins with the wells themselves.
“The biggest challenge we face is the narrow diameter of many wells,” he explained. “Their openings are often too small for a rescuer to enter and reach the victim, forcing us to rely on rope rescue systems and other specialized techniques.”
Poor ventilation presents another major danger.
“A lack of oxygen inside the well can cause victims to suffocate,” Al-Hassan said. “The extreme depth is another critical factor. Once a child falls more than fifty metres, rescue becomes extraordinarily difficult.”
While some incidents end with dramatic rescues after desperate races against time, others conclude far more tragically: bodies trapped deep underground, families returning home after years of displacement only to lose their children within moments, and entire villages living with the daily fear that a deadly shaft may lie only a few steps from their homes.
Al-Hassan urged residents of rural communities to focus on prevention above all else.
“The most important recommendation is to keep children away from areas where wells are being drilled, remain open or have been abandoned, and to ensure these wells are properly sealed using whatever simple means are available.”
Interview with Ibrahim Al-Hassan, Head of the Search and Rescue Department, Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Management, April 2026 – SIRAJ
The testimonies collected from families, rescuers and official data obtained by SIRAJ indicate that these incidents are no longer isolated accidents. Rather, they are the cumulative consequence of years of war, weak oversight, and the abandonment of hundreds of wells and underground cisterns after their equipment was looted during the years when the former Syrian regime and its affiliated militias controlled large areas of northern Syria.
Despite the efforts of Civil Defence teams working with limited resources and technical capacity, rescuers insist that many of these deaths could have been prevented through simple precautions: a secure metal cover, a concrete slab, or even a large stone placed over the opening of an abandoned well.
Geologist and researcher Thabet Al-Kassha agrees that preventing falls does not require sophisticated solutions, but rather the consistent application of basic safety measures once wells are completed or taken out of service.
He says the most important steps include securing every well opening with a firmly fixed metal cover, whether the well is active or abandoned, and installing a metal casing extending at least 50 centimetres above ground level, reducing the risk of accidental falls.
Al-Kassha also noted that the diameter of a well plays a crucial role in rescue operations. Wells wider than 35 centimetres provide rescuers with greater room to operate, while narrower shafts significantly hinder access and increase the risk to victims, particularly young children.
As official records continue to document new incidents, children across northern Syria continue to play near uncovered wells—unaware that a single step may be enough to put their lives at risk.
Creative Production and Visual Design: Radwan Awwad
