According to a BBC News report, forty mentally ill patients have broken out of a mental hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. The patients reportedly escaped by overpowering guards at the facility after a protest about their medications. Kenyan police have told the BBC that some of the patients could be violent.
The breakout happened at the Mathari Mental Hospital, the largest mental hospital in Kenya. The hospital was built as a smallpox isolation facility and later converted into a mental hospital. Before the breakout it housed around 75 patients.
Kenyan police have launched a manhunt for the patients, who they say will be easy to identify.
Mathari Mental Hospital has been criticized in the past for its conditions and treatment of patients. In 2011, CNN reporters were locked in the facility for hours after uncovering a recently deceased patient: