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Families of Italy's Coronavirus Dead Seek Answers, Solace, Justice

Associated Press

   ROME - It started out as way for grief-struck families to mourn their
   coronavirus dead online: a Facebook group where relatives who were
   denied a funeral because of Italy's stringent lockdowns could share
   photos, memories and sorrow that their loved ones had died all alone.

   But this spontaneous virtual forum for eulogies, anguish and
   condolences has now turned into an activist group that is providing a
   steady stream of testimony and evidence to prosecutors investigating
   whether any crimes contributed to Italy's COVID-19 toll.

   Lawyers for the Noi Denunceremo (We Will Denounce) Facebook group and
   an affiliated non-profit committee are filing 100 new cases Monday with
   Bergamo prosecutors investigating the outbreak, on top of 50 complaints
   lodged last month.

   The case files and Facebook posts paint a visceral portrait of the
   people swept up in Italy's devastating coronavirus outbreak, the first
   in the West: of mothers and fathers taken away by ambulance and never
   seen alive again by their children; of frantic efforts to locate vacant
   intensive care beds and impossible-to-find oxygen tanks; of hospitals
   so overwhelmed trying to save the living that relatives of the dead
   were often just an afterthought.

   "It's a system that didn't hold up, a system that had to choose who to
   save and who not," said Diego Federici, 35, who lost his otherwise
   healthy mother and father to COVID-19 in just four days in March.

   Federici believes that neither of his parents was treated adequately.
   He says his mother was essentially sedated until she died and then her
   body was transported to Bologna, 250 kilometers (155 miles) away, to be
   cremated because Bergamo's crematoriums and cemeteries were full.

   "There are too many doubts, too many things that were done badly," he
   said in a telephone interview.

   Compiled by sons and daughters, widows and widowers, the vast majority
   of cases that We Will Denounce is filing with prosecutors concern
   deaths in northern Lombardy's provinces of Bergamo and Brescia, where
   the outbreak erupted in late February. The two provinces fast became
   ground zero of the European epidemic and together account for around a
   quarter of Italy's 35,000 official COVID-19 deaths.

   Experts believe the true number of coronavirus deaths is much higher,
   in Italy and elsewhere, due to testing limitations.

   "We are certain that with 35,000 dead, they can't go and cover up
   everything as has unfortunately occurred with other Italian tragedies,"
   said Stefano Fusco, who co-founded We Will Denounce with his father
   after the March 11 death of the family patriarch, Antonio.

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