Bengaluru Volunteer Group Ensures Dignity In Death For Covid Victims

The Mercy Angels team helps the families to get the bodies of their loved ones released from the hospitals and move them to the respective burial grounds.

Thousands of people are going through a terrible time of grief - losing their loved ones to COVID-19. The need to follow unfamiliar protocols during the funeral just adds to that burden and that is where the team of 'Mercy Angels' - a volunteer group in Bengaluru which helps in arranging funerals for the Covid victims of all communities - steps in. Anne Morris has been a volunteer with the group since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. "I did 120 burials then. I lost count of the number of cremations. I counted till 600, then I lost count," she said. Ms Anne, speaking to NDTV at the Indian Christian Cemetery in Bengaluru, said, "The reason I started helping these people is because I could see their despair and their helplessness. What the families of those who died of Covid were facing. The agony of losing a loved one is one thing but getting these bodies out of the hospital, can they be buried, how do we go about that - that was a big question mark for most of the families. I decided we have to do something to help such people. Because many of the people did not have information about the funeral protocol."