Kevin Bell Trust has helped repatriate 1,000 Irish people who have died abroad

Colin and Eithne Bell, who set up the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust in memory of their son.  Picture: Cyril Byrne

A charity set up by grieving parents after the loss of their son has helped bring home over 1000 Irish people who have died abroad.

The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust was set up by Kevin’s parents Colin and Eithne after their son tragically passed while living abroad in 2013. They have since helped with the repatriation of 1006 people who died overseas in the last seven years, including 186 in Munster and 60 in Cork alone.

In 2018 and 2019, the charity saw the highest number of repatriations, with 207 in each year.

Kevin, who was 26, had been travelling for some time in Australia before moving to New York, explained Mr Bell, who is based in Newry.

“He was there for about 10 months and went out on Saturday night. And arriving back into his apartment, he was hit by an out of control van. He was struck again by another car and Kevin was killed instantly,” Mr Bell said.

The family then faced the uncertainty of how they would get their son’s body home, to be buried. However, the community around them rose to offer support.

“It’s terrible. You don’t know who to call or who to talk to. Or how you go about bringing him home,” Mr Bell said.

“But when people from Newry heard about Kevin’s death, they went into a frenzy of fundraising and raised £150,000 (€164,000) to get him home. So we decided that we would use this money to help other families who were hit the same devastating news."

The cost to repatriation is an expensive one, Mr Bell explains, with prices varying from about $10,000 (around €8,200) in America, around €4000 from anywhere in Europe.

“A fortnight after Kevin’s funeral we had heard about a young lad from Belfast who was killed in Thailand, so we reached out to those parents said, we have this money, we'll take your son home. Then after another couple of weeks, another young man was killed in Las Vegas, and we reached out to the family and it went from there,” he said.

“We are able to say to them that they don't have to do any more, we'll take it out of their hands and make the arrangements and get their loved ones home,” Mr Bell added.

It wasn’t the only tragedy of this nature which would befall the Bell family. Shortly after Kevin’s death, Mr Bell’s nephew was also killed in San Francisco, in a hit and run.

When a family, who has lost a loved one overseas, contacts the Department of Foreign Affairs, they will be put in contact with The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, Mr Bell explained.