Human cost · named record
Serawit Gezahegn Dejene
Arrived in the United States from Ethiopia in late August 2024 and was detained at Eloy Detention Center within days of arrival.
The account in the record
The cited source reports the suspected cause of death as: Removal of life-sustaining therapies per family wishes after complications from multiple infections in the setting of HIV and likely AIDS.
HRW and PHR documented repeated medical visits before he was hospitalized and diagnosed with tuberculosis and multiple infections in the setting of HIV and likely AIDS; their case study identifies serious unanswered questions about screening, weight loss, testing, and delayed diagnosis.
Human Rights Watch / Physicians for Human Rights · HRW/PHR named case study: Serawit Gezahegn Dejene
Custody timeline and recorded facts
- Age at death
- 45
- Sex as published
- Male
- Reported nationality
- Ethiopia
- Date of death
- January 29, 2025
- Days in custody
- 162
- Custody context
- custodial facility
- Place of death
- Banner University Medical Center Phoenix
- Place of death, state
- Arizona
What the reviewed sources do not tell us
- Date of birth: Not established in reviewed sources
- Custody began: Not established in reviewed sources
Cause and medical-review status
Suspected cause, per Physicians for Human Rights medical review: Removal of life-sustaining therapies per family wishes after complications from multiple infections in the setting of HIV and likely AIDS
- Suspected cause
- Removal of life-sustaining therapies per family wishes after complications from multiple infections in the setting of HIV and likely AIDS
- Cause status as recorded
- suspected
- Attributed to
- Physicians for Human Rights medical review
What the reviewed sources do not tell us
- Official cause: Not established in reviewed sources
- Manner of death: Not established in reviewed sources
What remains unknown or disputed
- Date of birth is not published in the reviewed sources.
- The public record does not establish a complete clinical or custodial chronology beyond what the cited sources publish.
Facility and institutional associations
Eloy Detention Center — view the facility record
Custody location, not a finding of responsibility.
Why a facility name is not a finding of responsibility
Custodial records associate this person with this facility. This does not by itself establish that the facility or its operator caused or could have prevented the death.
Sources
Evidence boundaries
Cause, preventability, and responsibility are separate questions in this record.
What the sources establish
- The cited sources identify this person by name and record the death on the stated date within the report window.
- The cited sources associate the custody record with the named location.
- The cited source records the stated suspected cause; it is not converted into an official cause.
What remains unknown
- Date of birth is not published in the reviewed sources.
- The public record does not establish a complete clinical or custodial chronology beyond what the cited sources publish.
What this record does not establish
- That detention, a facility, a contractor, or an individual caused the death unless a cited finding explicitly says so.
- That the death was preventable or negligent unless a cited source explicitly establishes that conclusion.
- A custodial-location association does not by itself establish that the facility or its operator caused or could have prevented the death.
The cause language is reproduced as an attributed source finding. This project does not independently diagnose the death or adjudicate negligence, preventability, or responsibility.