diff --git a/.github/scripts/close_duplicate_issues.py b/.github/scripts/close_duplicate_issues.py
index ec522af4f88..f9c3f24ec5a 100755
--- a/.github/scripts/close_duplicate_issues.py
+++ b/.github/scripts/close_duplicate_issues.py
@@ -50,17 +50,7 @@ def fetch_open_issues(repo: str | None) -> list[dict]:
     cmd = ["api", "--paginate", endpoint]
 
     raw = gh(*cmd)
-    # gh --paginate concatenates JSON arrays, so we may get multiple arrays
-    issues = []
-    for line in raw.strip().splitlines():
-        line = line.strip()
-        if not line:
-            continue
-        parsed = json.loads(line)
-        if isinstance(parsed, list):
-            issues.extend(parsed)
-        else:
-            issues.append(parsed)
+    issues = json.loads(raw)
 
     # Filter out pull requests (they also appear in the issues endpoint)
     return [i for i in issues if "pull_request" not in i]
diff --git a/tests/test_litellm/test_close_duplicate_issues.py b/tests/test_litellm/test_close_duplicate_issues.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..f41c9f074c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_litellm/test_close_duplicate_issues.py
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+"""Unit tests for `.github/scripts/close_duplicate_issues.py`."""
+
+import importlib.util
+from pathlib import Path
+
+import pytest
+
+SCRIPT_PATH = Path(__file__).resolve().parents[2] / ".github" / "scripts" / "close_duplicate_issues.py"
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(scope="module")
+def duplicate_issues_module():
+    spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location("close_duplicate_issues", SCRIPT_PATH)
+    assert spec and spec.loader
+    module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
+    spec.loader.exec_module(module)
+    return module
+
+
+def test_fetch_open_issues_preserves_unicode_line_separators(duplicate_issues_module, monkeypatch):
+    raw = '[{"number": 1, "body": "line\u2028separator"}, {"number": 2, "body": "paragraph\u2029separator"}]'
+    monkeypatch.setattr(duplicate_issues_module, "gh", lambda *args: raw)
+
+    assert duplicate_issues_module.fetch_open_issues("BerriAI/litellm") == [
+        {"number": 1, "body": "line\u2028separator"},
+        {"number": 2, "body": "paragraph\u2029separator"},
+    ]