‘Like purgatory’: diaspora in despair as India sinks deeper into Covid crisis

Indian Americans scramble to secure oxygen canisters for family members, desperately work to raise funds and pressure US legislators to lift vaccine patents

Since the pandemic began, Fatima Ahmed has lost 29 of her family members in India and one in the US to Covid-19.

A few days ago, her uncle died in his car as he was driving back home from a hospital in Hyderabad, a city in southern India. All the hospitals were at capacity, so they couldn't take him in," said Ahmed. He pulled over and he called the rest of the family, the khandan - before he passed."