Nearly 50 young men have died during South Africa’s 2026 winter initiation season, as illegal schools proliferate and some traditional leaders block health workers from entering camps, a preliminary government report to Parliament reveals. Illegal schools and blocked access to careOfficials counted 115 illegal initiation schools in the 2026 winter season, up from 59 closed in 2025, with 42 shut down this year. Most deaths in legal schools, but illegal camps still deadlyThe biggest death tolls came from legal and illegal schools combined, but the legal schools were not free of tragedy. “The meeting further agreed on interventions to strengthen law enforcement and consequence management for both illegal and legal initiation schools, in preparation for the 2026 summer initiation season,” the report says. For ordinary families, though, the headline remains painfully simple: young men went to initiation schools seeking manhood, and too many never came home.