When Custody Becomes Neglect
- Feb 2
- 1 min read
Some deaths are loud, others disappear behind institutional walls. In 2021, Sri Lankan detainee Wishma Sandamali died while in the custody of Japan’s immigration system, a place meant for administrative control, not medical neglect. Years later, the facts remain chilling. At a Nagoya District Court hearing, Dr. Masamune Shimo testified that Wishma’s life could have been saved at three critical junctures. Instead, dehydration, starvation, and prolonged inaction narrowed her chances until her body failed.
According to medical testimony, severe dehydration reduced blood circulation and triggered a vitamin B1 deficiency, leading to beriberi heart disease—a condition both preventable and treatable. This was not a sudden collapse, but a slow, visible deterioration. The lawsuit filed by Wishma’s family against the Japanese government is not only a legal demand; it is a moral reckoning.
Immigration detention exists in a gray zone of public attention, where accountability often arrives late, if at all. Wishma Sandamali’s death forces Japan, and the world, to confront a basic question: when someone is deprived of freedom, who is responsible for their survival? Justice here is not symbolic. It is measured in care denied, warnings ignored, and lives that should not have been lost.
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