A new generation of orphans as COVID ravages Indonesia

At a cemetery in East Kalimantan, 13-year-old Arga stands before his parents’ graves, dressed in a hazmat suit. Relatives have gathered around the cemetery for his mother’s funeral. Arga’s face is covered, but his voice reveals his grief. It shakes as he recites the call to prayer. Both his parents died from COVID-19. They are buried beside each other. Arga lives at an Islamic boarding school, and his parents would often send him parcels of homemade food. But when the packages stopped coming, Arga became suspicious that something was wrong, and he wrote a letter to his mother. “Are you sick, mum? Call me when you are okay. Please get enough sunlight,” he wrote.