Years of rising rates of suicide deaths and attempts in Iraq are a “worrying public health concern,” the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday.
“Over 590 people died in 2019 in Iraq due to suicide, and 1,112 attempted suicide; 80% of them women,” WHO said.
Those numbers translate to an average of one death per day and three attempted suicides per day.
Suicide deaths in Iraq have shown an alarming rise year on year. Around 519 suicide deaths were recorded in 2018, according to WHO data – up from 422 in 2017.
Factors contributing to the rise in suicides in Iraq include high crime rates and violence, financial challenges, legal issues, child abuse, neglect, and intimate partner problems, according to the WHO report.
Iraq has been gripped by economic crisis exacerbated by a drop in oil prices and the global coronavirus pandemic, leaving many Iraqis unemployed. A spike in incidences of domestic violence, another suicide risk factor, has also been reported in Iraq since the onset of the pandemic.
According to research conducted by six psychiatry scholars in Iraq, 49.5% of 1,591 Iraqi respondents said they had health anxiety over the COVID-19 home restriction in force earlier this year.
To combat suicide among young Iraqis, the health ministries of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq launched a helpline providing free confidential counseling in Arabic and Kurdish, with the support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and funding from Sweden.
“Adolescents and youth in Iraq have lived through many crises and a lot of them are suffering from psychological repercussions,” UNFPA said upon the launch of the helpline last month.
In the Kurdistan Region, more than 100 people committed suicide from January to July 2020 alone, the Kurdistan Region's Independent Board of Human Rights said in September.
Worldwide, around “800 000 people die yearly due to suicide,” WHO has previously said. “There is also one death recorded every 40 seconds globally due to suicide.”
by Khazan Jangiz
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