A six-day-long search-and-rescue operation for a missing three-year-old boy swept away in a sewer has ended with a fisherman pulling out the child’s lifeless boy from a river 20 miles away.

Little Hamza Ghareg was found miles from his village of Kafr El Sheikh, in Egypt, where he is believed to have drowned shortly after he was swept away in the drain.

An extensive search was launched when the boy first went missing after he accidentally fell in the sewer near his home.

Many volunteers came from the nearby towns and neighbouring villages to aid in the search, which sadly ended five days later with Hamza’s dead body being found by the fisherman.

Reda Kamal, a fisherman living in Kafr El Sheikh, reportedly knew the area extremely well after fishing in the nearby waters for years and decided to join the search.

Kamal said: “Instead of only hunting within the borders of the village, I kept going outside my village and looking for Hamza.”

The old man spared no effort in searching for the child, and began searching an area distanced about 20 miles from the village where he believed the boy might be found.

Kamal added: “I knew that he would wind up in this place.”

His search continued for about three days, which resulted in discovery of Hamza’s dead body.

On the sixth day of the little boy’s disappearance, Kamal came down as usual, looking for the drowned child in the area where he was believed to be, and started poking the water with a stick.

Kamal said: “I kept working in the middle of the water, and then I saw Hamza’s face in the water.

The child’s family was both relieved that the boy had been found and devastated that he was confirmed dead.