You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Bodies of COVID-19 Victims Lie Unclaimed Outside Chapel in La Paz, Bolivia

HeadlineAug 12, 2020

India reported more than 60,000 new coronavirus cases and 834 deaths Wednesday — nearly breaking a record set earlier this week — bringing India’s official death toll to more than 46,000. Latin America remains the epicenter of the pandemic, with just 8% of the world’s population and 30% of global deaths from COVID-19.

In Bolivia, morgues in the city of La Paz are filled to capacity as bodies of COVID-19 victims have been left uncollected in an open-air spot near a local chapel. A police officer cited residents’ fear of contracting the virus.

Grover Yujra: “The majority of those bodies here at the morgue are people who died on the street. And for those who died at home, families have passed on funerary responsibilities because they fear coronavirus infection.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top