South Africa, religious pastor and wife arrested: they kept 200 people in chains

Authorities discovered an illegal rehabilitation center operated inside a church. Extremely inhuman conditions were found inside the facility: many patients were chained together and had sores all over their bodies

A religious pastor and his wife were arrested in South Africa after the discovery of 200 people, some of them chained, inside an alleged illegal rehabilitation center located in the north-eastern part of the country: the BBC announced. The structure, run as part of a church in the province of Mpumalanga, was discovered yesterday during an operation conducted by local authorities.

The police: "Condition of extreme inhumanity"

“Conditions of extreme inhumanity” were reportedly found during the raid: some patients had “sores all over their bodies,” while others were “chained to each other.” The police have indicted the couple who ran the center for kidnapping, but the addition of further charges has not been ruled out while the two have not yet made any statements.

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In recent years, in South Africa, the number of illegal rehabilitation centers has increased dramatically, in step with the growing prevalence of drug use in the country. Last year, the Department for Social Development announced that it had identified over 100 unauthorized structures active throughout the country, mostly concentrated in the province of Gauteng, from which some of the people found in the structure in the province of Mpumalanga came, as the Department specified in a statement.

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