India’s devastating coronavirus outbreak has turned children into orphans

Bhopal, India – The nights are the hardest.

Five-year-old twins Rohi and Mahi go to bed late. They often wake up in the dark crying or frightened.

In the morning, their great-uncle wears them and combs their hair. They ask him the same question over and over: Where are our parents?

Your mother and father with the doctors, he told the girls. They are in the hospital.

The truth is hard for him to speak. Rohi and Mahi’s parents died, and she was swept away in a matter of days during the disastrous second wave of coronavirus cases in India.

The girls’ father, Mohan, known for his helpful nature and devotion to his daughters, died on April 30, his lungs straining on a ventilator at a government-run hospital in this central Indian city.

Three days later, their mother, Rita, died at home in a rooftop room with pale yellow walls, crushed by disease and grief. Her daughters were sleeping nearby.

The full severity of the recent wave of infections in India – Now finally back off ي – It’s hard to understand. In April and May, the virus Hospitals are overwhelmed and kill Approximately 170,000 IndiansAccording to official statistics. Experts believe the real figure much higher.

Perhaps no phenomenon sums up the nation’s losses as the number of orphaned children on the increase. What happened to my daughters Mohan and Rita is not unique: nearly 600 children in India Lost both parents Smriti Irani, the government minister in charge of Women’s Affairs and Child Development, said: In a tweet last month.

Even that number might underestimate the tragedy. Across India, more than 3,600 children have been orphaned as a result of the virus and other causes since the start of the pandemic, according to an affidavit provided by the National Committee for the Protection of Child Rights this month.

Although India’s situation is extreme, the country is far from alone. The pandemic has killed parents of young children all over the world. Researchers in the United States used Census Bureau data to estimate this 43,000 American children have lost a parent covid since March of last year. There have also been families in the United States where both parents have died.

In India, the ferocity of the second wave has left hospitals too full to treat patients. Many died because they couldn’t get it enough oxygen Or another treatment, leaving their families with the unanswerable question of whether their relatives were saved with proper care.

Most of the orphaned children in increased number of soldiers are staying with their relatives. A small minority have been placed in institutional care, child protection authorities say. The risks are myriad: Children who have lost their parents are more likely to develop depression, drop out of school, and be exploited, experts say.

In April, messages began circulating on social media allegedly looking for adoptive parents for children whose parents died of the coronavirus. The appeals were so widespread that the authorities issued a warning Such direct adoption is illegal It may be used to traffic children.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced That the national government will cover educational expenses and provide health insurance for children orphaned by the coronavirus, in addition to allocating funds that they can access when they reach the age of 18. And in such troubled times, Modi said, according to an official statement, “It is our duty as a society to take care of our children.”

Identical twins with small wrists and large brown eyes, Mahi and Ruhi live with their mother’s uncle and their extended family in the narrow lanes of the ancient city of Bhopal. When my soul, who is minutes older than her, is asked about her best friend, she does not hesitate. “what is it!” She screamed as she leaned over a coloring book.

That morning, my soul woke up and told her uncle Subhash Raikwar that she had seen her parents during the night. She said she knew it was them, because she could see their faces above the bedroom door. (The Washington Post is withholding the girls’ family name to protect their privacy.)

“When they tell us things like that, it makes our hair stand on end,” Subhash said. “How did this happen? Will they be able to forget this?”

A day earlier, the girls had returned to their home on the outskirts of the city for the first time since their parents fell ill. They were excited to see the neighbor’s dog and the rickety swing across the street where they used to go with their father, who was an electrician at a nearby factory earning about $250 a month.

Mohan and Rita were from a tribal community whose traditional occupation was fishing, and they married in 2009. They tried for years to have children. The girls were born in 2016.

The house was a small rented room. A calendar distributed by a Hindu religious group hanging on one of the walls. The page turned to April, the month that changed everything. That’s when Mohan, who was in his early forties, started coughing. Days later, he was having trouble breathing. By then, the virus was racing across India, infecting hundreds of thousands of people daily.

Mohan’s health worsened on April 25, and that night, the oxygen saturation in his blood dropped to a dangerous level. Rita’s brother manages to get Mohan to the Hamidiya Hospital, a cluster of mustard-and-white buildings near the historic Bhopal Mosque. Rita, 40, has also developed symptoms of Covid. She and her two daughters tested positive for coronavirus two days later. My soul had a cough, but her sister remained unharmed.

Before Mohan was put on a ventilator, he told Subhash that he is worried about his children. He asked if he could be taken to a private hospital for better treatment, but there were no beds available. Mohan died late on April 30. His body was cremated the next morning, one of 82 coronavirus victims that day at the city’s main Bhadhada crematorium.

Rita, who had a persistent cough and difficulty breathing, came with the girls to her childhood home, three tight, interconnected houses near one of Bhopal’s many lakes where her mother, an elderly widow, still lived. Rita isolated herself in a room on the roof with only one small window, too high to see outside. Her relatives said she did not want to eat or talk to anyone.

The night before Rita died, she insisted that the girls go upstairs and sleep with her in the room. Alka Requar, 45, one of Rita’s aunts, said she spoke to her niece after midnight. Alka asked if she was eating and urged her to be strong for the sake of her children. Alka said that if Rita had a problem, they would take her to the doctor.

The next morning, Rita was unresponsive. The girls tried to wake her up. Subhash checked her pulse: Nothing. He called an ambulance. Emergency personnel arrived and pronounced her dead.

For the second time in three days, family members returned to the crematorium. There were crowds and they had to wait. Mamish Sharma, an official with the Crematorium, said the facility had not seen such scenes in its 70-year history. “The house was full,” he said, pointing to charred spots on the concrete where corpses had been cremated for lack of proper crematoriums.

Bhopal is a quiet city of lakes and crumbling palaces. In 1984, it was the scene of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, when toxic gas leaked from a pesticide factory owned at the time by Union Carbide, an American company.

Subhash said that at the height of the second wave of coronavirus, people were so afraid to go outside that it looked like something toxic was in the air. “There was this kind of fear in people’s hearts,” he said. Regardless of the grief, the neighbors were unwilling to help the neighbors.

Rouhi and Mahi’s parents weren’t the family’s only loss. Subhash, 45, is the youngest of seven siblings. (He was the grandfather of my soul, and Mahi was the second oldest of them). His older sister and one of her sons also died of the Corona virus this year.

Subhash makes his living selling fish and owns a printing press. He is also active in local politics. He is now the main caregiver for girls during the day. He helps them shower and gives them breakfast. His wife, Rakha, works as a lab technician and returns from work in the afternoon. The couple has two sons, 18 and 8.

All Subhash wants is to fulfill the aspirations of the girls’ parents – a good school, high-quality education, and a chance to rise in the world. Mahi says she wants to become a doctor. My soul would like to become a police officer.

One morning, a speck of baby powder appeared on her neck after a shower. Her hair was neatly gathered into a ponytail with a fuzzy purple elastic band. My soul had a matching yellow rubber band in her hair.

My soul said that if she was at home with her parents, there would be “masti” – a lot of fun. She said she used to go to the park with her father and fly on a swing, or walk to a nearby temple.

Subhash doesn’t know how long he will keep telling Ruhi and Mahi that their parents are in hospital. He hopes the twins will gradually understand that they will not return. Girls already hear from their cousins ​​that their father and father are with God. But Subhash cannot say that.

Ravi Mishra contributed to this report.

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