The Mental Health Rights Protection and Investigations Unit (UIP)of the Harm Reduction Association of Argentina (ARDA)presented complaints to the Justice Department and requests for exhaustive investigation into four deaths that occurred in therapeutic communities in the Province of Buenos Airesin the last year and a half.
There were fatalities Catalina, 20 years old, Sebastián, 36, and two 17-year-old teenagers, whom the report calls Brian and Julianain order to protect identity. They assure that these institutions “They are clandestine detention centers.”
There are four cases that occurred in communities located in Escobar and Pilar that, according to what was reported, they operated without authorization and were not controlled by the State. Besides, Some of these places of confinement had already been closed. They denounce that They also did not have professional mental health teams.
UIP research is disseminated in a context in which Javier Milei intends to send to National Congress a project to modify the current National Mental Health Law 26,657, which has been in force in Argentina since 2010. This would imply a great setback in the fight against the deepest problem that crosses all spheres of society.
Emptying in Mental Health
Along these lines, it is worth noting that one of the first areas that the National Government was that of Mental Health, with definancing and a deep emptying. This is a stratified plan to destroy all state systems of containment of the population.
Pablo Galfré is an investigative journalist and member of the control body. In dialogue with Time He told about the work they carry out: «We are litigating several causes of cases like these; These are deaths that could be avoided.. “We managed to have several of these so-called rehabilitation farms closed.”
He also said that the UIP is being funded by the National Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CNPT) and that continue in the search for international financing. And he explained that the situation of the people in those places “is very cruel”, because the users “suffer serious violations of the Human Rights systematically.
They are not isolated events
«By not investigating, the State naturalizes the deaths of people who use the mental health system. These are not isolated events. Last year, from the UIP we denounced in a report 20 deaths occurred in these confinement devices during a decade: suicides, manslaughters, fires, drownings and other types of deaths that could be prevented. However, today the pace is accelerating.«, denounces the investigation.
He also points out that an error does not appear behind these files, but “a precarious system in which uncontrolled confinement, clandestine institutions, isolated young people, naturalized violent practices and a State that arrives late or never arrives are exposed.”
Those of Catalina and Sebastian There are two cases of suicides that occurred in 10 months in a closed community. They detail that the man committed suicide in September 2024 and the girl in June 2025. Both cases in the therapeutic community Heal to Liveof Escobarwhich has now been transferred to Pillarwhere it still works.
The two deaths were – according to the report – quickly filed so as not to be investigated. It is a community that is not authorized, which had also been closed, in which the hospitalized people lived in a climate of overmedication and threats.
The work carried out says that the witnesses assured that the farm authorities insulted Sebastián and shouted at him: “Bag of falopa and faggot”. They also learned that Catalina, the day before taking her own life, wrote in her notebook: “I woke up with voices in my head.”
Witnesses told the IPU that the girl cried, asked for help and received no assistance. And they locked her up, pushed her, overmedicated her and even yelled at her: “You’re crazy, you fucking idiot.”. Finally, the next day, She took her own life while locked in her room.
Heal to Live
Another case is the Briana minor who was transferred by the State of Rio Negro to a clandestine community – as often happens – located in the Province of Buenos Aires. He was a teenager 17 years, with maturational delay and severe obesity. He died on January 1, 2026.
It happened after being transferred while suffering from pneumonia. It was brought from the therapeutic community Never Alone Again from Pilar, to Sanguinetti Hospital from that same district: «The community owners covered up Braian’s death. Furthermore, it They left him abandoned and forced his mother to sign a treatment waiver.”, highlights the report.
The document that Braian’s mother was forced to sign appears in the investigation carried out by the UIP. They aim at Carlos Sasso as owner of the community, “recovered addict” and former partner of Daiana Lizzi“who is a lover of luxury and vulgarity.”
«Lizzi is the owner of the community Heal to Live and problematic drug user. We also know that he is a lover of expensive surgeries and we learned of several trips he made to Paris, Punta del Este and the Mexican Caribbean,” the work states.
In state custody
Although the institution had already been reported in November 2025 by the UIP and inspected by the Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM)was never closed. The report elaborates that Braian’s death is even more serious if one considers that he would have been transferred there by the Secretariat of Children, Adolescence and Family (SENAF) of Río Negro.
The document maintains that it is much more serious when it is one’s own State the one that contains “a child in a club run by criminals”. Following the UIP complaint, the Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) 1 of Pilar began last March 27, a Preparatory Criminal Investigation (IPP) by “causal investigation of death”.
Then there is the case of Juliana. The suicide of a minor that must be thoroughly investigated. Had 17 years old, His death occurred on February 2, 2026 at the Signals Therapeutic Community, in Grand Bourg, in the Malvinas Argentinas district.
A complete investigation
His death was preliminarily reported as “hanging”but the seriousness of what happened, demands “an immediate and complete investigation.” Because it is about a minor in the context of confinement in another community who also did not have authorization.
«We analyzed the website of the Signes community and found the x-ray of an opaque and disciplinary institution: it spoke of ‘change of behavior and habits’ and of a ‘controlled environment’. But It did not display a single mental health professional identified by name, registration and function, nor did it report health authorization or clinical managers. There were only WhatsApp numbers,” says the work.
The Mental Health Rights Protection and Investigations Unit requested the Judicial Departments of San Isidro and Zárate-Campana, as well as the Local Review Body (ORL) of the Mental Health Lawwhich are seriously investigated: «These four deaths are not isolated events, they are the emergence of a confinement system that, when it fails, claims the lives of the most vulnerable people.«emphasizes the report.
