Pleas for help in India as COVID-19 leaves children without carers

FILE PHOTO: Children of migrant workers sit at a bus station, as they wait to board a bus to return to their villages, after Delhi government ordered a six-day lockdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, April 20, 2021. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

BENGALURU (Reuters) -When an Indian children's rights group tracked down two boys aged 6 and 8 after it was told that their parents were both severely ill with COVID-19 and unable to care for them, the children had not eaten for days.

The case, reported by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) group which located the boys in a small town in India's rural heartland, was one of a growing number of emergencies involving children affected by India's devastating coronavirus crisis.