n photographs together and with their families, the five men smile, or hold their loved ones close. All 50 or older, their friendships ranged over decades, their passions running from philanthropy to cycling, their duties from activism to business. A little over two weeks ago, they were pillars of the Pakistani community in the small pocket of Birmingham in which they all lived, with 41 grandchildren between them. Now they are all dead, victims of coronavirus. “We will be lost without them,” said Amer Awan, 44, whose 67-year-old father Nazir is among the dead. “They were our backbone – the keepers of our history. It is phenomenal that they have all gone.” As alarm has grown over the disproportionate effect of coronavirus on minority groups, the growing toll of BAME individuals has prompted calls for new research to understand the causes and urgent steps to protect those who appear to be most at risk. But in areas with large minority populations like Small Heath, Sparkhill and Hall Green, the individual grief is echoed by a wider loss – the disappearance of a generation of men who are remembered by those who loved them as central to community life. The five victims, close enough to be frequent guests at each other’s homes for tea and gossip, present a tragic checklist of risk factors for coronavirus: all male, all older, all of Asian descent, some with underlying health problems. In interviews with the Guardian, their relatives and friends reflected on dozens more in the community – Asian, middle-aged men living in historically impoverished areas – who have also died, and on the legacy that has gone with them. “Their generation came over when times were much harder and they laid the foundations for us,” said Amer Awan. “Without them we wouldn’t be where we are today. They were fighters.” As well as Nazir Awan, Choudhary Aslam Wassan, 67, Miah Zaffer, 80, Umar Afzal, 71, and Jawad Iqbal, 50, all died last month. The men lived and worked within a 10-mile radius. Their deaths, their families say, suggest that the claim that “this disease does not discriminate” is hollow. The group were often seen together at charity events and celebrations, with several of them members of the local Labour party. They were entrepreneurial as well as political, employing large numbers of local people in their businesses. But most of all, their loved ones said, they were strong family men to whom others looked for direction and advice. Amer’s father, 67-year-old Nazir, was a multi-millionaire businessman known for his philanthropy. The former director at the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, who once chaired the Birmingham Asian Business Association, founded Awan Marketing International as a cash-and-carry wholesaler in 1976, with it still operating to this day. The grandfather of six and keen cyclist, from Sutton Coldfield, fell ill at the end of March with a fever, and was taken to Good Hope hospital in north Birmingham. Within hours of arriving at the hospital he was put on a ventilator but he did not recover and died on 8 April. Just 10 miles away in Acocks Green, his friend Umar Afzal, the older brother of Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor for north-west England, lost his life to the virus on the same day. Afzal, a broadcaster and certified interpreter who specialised in translating Urdu and Pashto into English, is believed to have contracted coronavirus during a visit to their 91-year-old mother while she was being treated for pneumonia at Birmingham’s Heartlands hospital. After testing positive, he was told to remain at home as he had no underlying health conditions. He died there. “These guys are the ones that sacrificed so much for our communities and put us on the map. Their generation was a different class of people and what they achieved was phenomenal – we have lost the heads of our community and our history has gone with them. It is terrible,” said Amer. His thoughts were echoed by Nazir Afzal. “These are a generation of men, people, that the communities have come to rely upon,” he said. “There will be a reckoning when we realise the consequences of this – losing a generation of leaders, peers and role models.” The sons of Choudhary Aslam Wassan, a popular and charismatic former food business pioneer and political campaigner, Miah Zaffer, the first to die out of the friends on 23 March, and Jawad Iqbal, a businessman and political activist – the youngest of the friends to die – also spoke of their grief. All five men lost their fathers in the space of just 17 days. Wassan came to Birmingham from Pakistan in the 1970s, aged 21, with his brother Ashraf, and devoted his life to the city. He championed Labour activists locally, including Khalid Mahmood, now MP for Perry Barr, and Waseem Zaffar, now cabinet member for transport and the environment for Birmingham city council. Zaffer, a former mill worker, had been retired for a number of years and was described as being “incredibly popular”. A well-known socialite, he would spend much of his time with his family and friends going back to Pakistan for up to five months every year. Iqbal’s company, Overseas Express, was one of the oldest money exchange businesses in the city. He was also a Labour party member of the Hodge Hill branch, a community activist, and a sponsor of the annual Mega Mela festival. The friends all came from nearby villages in Pakistan, with some of their friendships forged as children. They saw each other sometimes daily, and would often meet at local events and family celebrations. Their friendships were built on mutual respect, relatives said, describing the warmth between them as built on an understanding of what each had achieved. “They would always be around each other’s houses drinking tea and talking about everything,” said Wassan’s son, Zia. “And they would always be sat together at events chatting away, and whenever there was a photographer you could guarantee they would be in the picture. They were so kind – they always wanted to do things for others.” In the Small Heath area of south Birmingham, the reminders that these men were far from alone are everywhere. In a temporary morgue in the car park of Central Jamia Mosque Ghamkol Sharif, large stacks of empty coffins are piled up. In the space of just a few weeks the funeral service at this mosque alone dealt with approximately 70 deaths, out of which there were 40 confirmed cases. Mosque trustee Ahsan ul Haq said that on some days they were collecting up to five bodies. Muslim coronavirus victims were transported from hospitals, and placed in refrigerators inside a tent before they were laid to rest in accordance with Islamic religion. He said: “We had to do this because of the high death rate of Muslims from Covid-19. To keep the coronavirus deaths separate from the normal ones we set up a morgue outside. Each fridge can hold up to 50 bodies and we can store 150 in total – but God forbid that actually happens.” Another mosque trustee and volunteer Mohamid Zahid, 52, who has suffered personal loss as a result of the pandemic, broke down in tears as he described the days he has spent moving bodies with other volunteers. “We have been on the frontline picking up bodies from hospitals and readying them for burial. I know of brothers and sisters who have died, people who have lost both their parents. On some days I was at the graveyard two to three times a day. Whole families are being wiped out – the older generation are being wiped out. I have literally just moved a body before I phoned – this is not something that we will recover from,” says Mohammed. It is an anathema to these communities to suggest they do not socialise, said Nazir Afzal, and this could have a part to play in the way that the virus has been able to take its hold and wreak havoc. Amer agrees and goes further saying that some still do not understand the severity of the situation, or are unable or unwilling to adhere to the government’s guidelines. “This isn’t just some kind of devastating coincidence. There is a reason we are falling like dominoes – we are not taking this seriously enough,” he said. “People are breaking the rules, some of the things I have seen are shocking and we need to stop. This – all these deaths of my father and his friends – have surely shown just how vulnerable we are. I am scared for us when that second spike comes.”