'A new Esidimeni looms': Mentally ill are dying in jail despite warnings

Six weeks after the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) warned that suicides were on the increase among mentally ill prisoners, two more unnatural deaths were reported.

This emerged at a JICS seminar in the Eastern Cape last week.

And Inspecting judge, Justice Johann van der Westhuizen, has warned: “If we cannot find solutions to this problem we may be staring at a possible Life Esidimeni incident.”

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