NEW DELHI — One by one, the infants and children slipped away Thursday night, their parents watching helplessly as oxygen supplies at the government hospital ran dangerously low.
At least 30 children died Thursday and into Friday at a hospital in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after its supply of liquid oxygen was disrupted over an unpaid bill, officials said. A Home Ministry spokesman told the Press Trust of India, citing police reports, that 21 of the deaths were directly linked to a shortage of oxygen.
The state’s health minister and hospital officials have denied charges that the deaths were caused by the oxygen bill dispute. An estimated 60 children have died at the hospital since Aug. 7 from a variety of causes, officials said.
In a news conference Saturday, the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, called the tragedy despicable and said the state had set up a committee to investigate the role of the oxygen vendor.
“The guilty will not be spared,†Adityanath said.
Parents of the victims described feelings of anger and bewilderment over the incident, saying they were struggling with guilt over not being able to save their children.
“The idea is devastating — that she had to suffer while trying to breathe,†said Manger Rajbhar, the father of a 5-day-old girl who died in the chaos.
The deaths provoked widespread outrage and condemnation across the political spectrum and on social media, where a political cartoon spread that showed the babies as little angels hovering in the sky as an Indian government official tries to reach them.
“30 kids died in hospital without oxygen. This is not a tragedy. It’s a massacre,†Indian Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, a child advocate, said in a tweet. “Is this what 70 years of freedom means for our children?†(The country is set to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its independence from Britain on Tuesday.)