
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains names and images of people who have died.
The following contains mention of suicide, which may be triggering for some readers.
On Saturday, thousands of people marched in rallies around Australia calling on the Federal Government to take meaningful action to prevent Indigenous people dying behind bars.
And on Thursday, April 15, many will march again.
They're doing so to mark 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was tabled in Parliament, and because despite the lessons learned, the situation remains urgent.
Watch: Australia may be 'the lucky country'. But only for some.
Since the beginning of March, five Indigenous people have died in prison or police custody in Australia. That's five lives lost in fewer than five weeks.
On March 2, an Aboriginal man in his mid-30s died after becoming unresponsive in his cell at Long Bay prison hospital in NSW.
On March 5, an Aboriginal woman in her mid-50s died in an apparent suicide in her cell at Silverwater Women's Prison in NSW.
On March 7, an Aboriginal man held in Victoria's medium-security Ravenhall prison died in custody.
On March 18, a Barkindji man from NSW suffered a medical episode during a police pursuit. He was declared deceased at Broken Hill Hospital.
On April 3, a 45-year-old male inmate at Perth's maximum-security Casuarina prison died in Fiona Stanley Hospital after undergoing a medical procedure.
These tragedies have renewed questions about why rates of incarceration remain so high for Indigenous people and why, for some, being detained represents a death sentence.
Among those leading the charge is a collective of 15 Indigenous families who have lost a loved one in custody.
The group includes the family of David Dungay Jr., a Dunghutti man who died in 2015 after being restrained by five riot response officers at Sydney's Long Bay prison because he refused to stop eating a packet of crackers. And the family of Yorta Yorta woman Aunty Tanya Day, who died from brain injury in 2017 after repeatedly falling over in her cell. It was three hours after her most significant fall before police sought medical attention.