Christians from all over India call for prayer as COVID-19 continues to kill many due to its second surge.
The International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that Christians in India seek the international community for prayer and assistance for being overwhelmed with COVID infections.
"The international community has been called upon to assist India as the crisis continues to unfold. Oxygen, vaccines, and other desperately needed medical equipment has been promised by the U.S., U.K., and other countries," ICC stressed.
ICC cited a report from Premier Christian News that hospitals are already denying incoming patients since they are already serving maximum capacity.
"People dying are in ambulances because they were picked up too late. One ambulance was turned away by four hospitals. Four hours later, the person in the ambulance died," ICC quoted South Asian Concern Chair Ram Gidoomal in an interview with Premier Christian News.
Gidoomal added that cremation services are on hault since there are so many dead, wood has gone scarce.
"There is not enough wood to burn the bodies, which is part of the cremation procedure. There are queues. Normally, when you come from a Hindu family, you want the body to be burned and cremated as soon as possible. I cannot put it into words. It is heartbreaking," he added.
ICC revealed from a NPR report that a new COVID-19 variant, named B.1.617, is causing the second surge in India and is a "more contagious" strain.
The America Magazine similarly reported the need to "pray for the people of India" because the country is suffering an "unimaginable COVID-19 outbreak.
"We have a massive collapse of the whole [health care] infrastructure. Tell people to pray for India as a nation and the people of India; they definitely need prayers," called out Prashant Director Father Prakash in an interview with American Magazine.
Prashant, according to American Magazine, is a Jesuit Center for Human Rights, Justice and Peace that's located in India's industrial City Ahmedabad. Prakash told the American Magazine that the cases started rising in January and escalated like "no country in the world has experienced so far" come March.
The American Magazine said Prakash believes the official death toll of 196,000 people in India is "substantially undercounted" since a source from a local hospital told the priest that death records are 10 times higher than what the government has recorded.
Prakash told the American Magazine that the national goverment "seem frozen by the scale of the calamity" despite being forewarned months ahead on "the peril of a second wave of the pandemic." Prakash said the government is "abdicating its authority" amidst the "pathetic breakdown of a whole system."
The American Magazine also cited a Catholic News Service interview with New Delhi's Holy Family Hospital Director Father P.A. George who called the conditions in India a "disaster beyond the imagination" and asked people for prayers so they could "save some lives."
