Video shows boy trying to wake up dead mother at train station, highlighting India’s migrant crisis

A viral video of a toddler trying to wake up his dead mother at a railway station in eastern India has caused widespread outrage and highlighted one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the country right now.

The images show the body of a 23-year-old woman on the platform of Muzaffarpur railway station in Bihar state on Monday. Her young son can be seen repeatedly tugging at a piece of cloth placed on her body. Officials said the woman had died moments before on one of the special trains the Indian government is running for hundreds of thousands of poor migrant laborers stuck in big cities due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown.

The woman had taken the train from Ahmedabad city in Gujarat on Saturday, along with her two children, sister, and sister’s husband, heading for her hometown of Katihar, in Bihar state. But she died of “extreme heat, hunger and dehydration” on Monday as the train reached Muzaffarpur station, about 200 miles short of her hometown, Indian news outlets reported, quoting the victim’s family.