A pick-up truck carries coffins as its drives past the IESS Hospital Los Ceibos in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on April 13, 2020. (Photo by AFP)

Given the critical lack of coffins to bury those who have died from COVID-19 in Ecuador, the country’s Ministry of Environment and Water has initiated a program that delivers seized wood to different prisons so that the inmates can manufacture coffins.

Footage shows inmates in the Ambato prison building coffins during the prison workshops with the wood donated by the ministry.

Ecuador’s Minister of the Environment and Water, Juan De Howitt Holguin, explained that we are aware of the emotional burden that some Ecuadorian families are experiencing today because they have lost a loved one.

That is why from the national government and the Ministry of Environment and Water we are donating seized wood which before had no other purpose, but have a noble cause today: that is to provide a wooden coffin to those families who have lost a loved one.

The program includes the delivery of 730 cubic meters of wood from seizures in different provinces of Ecuador.

According to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, as of Monday Ecuador had 7,529 confirmed cases of coronavirus while 355 people have died from the disease.

(Source: Ruptly)