POLITICS-RUSSIA: A World Leader in Suicides

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Feb 7 2003 (IPS) - Russia is emerging as something of a world leader in suicides. At 39 suicides per 100,000 population per year, it is leaving the U.S. at 11 per 100,000 far behind.

Only Lithuania has a higher suicide rate, at 42 per 100,000, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures. Given its size and population of 145 million (to Lithuania’s 3.6 million), the number of suicides in Russia is becoming alarming.

The Russian figure is way above the world average of about 16 suicides per 100,000 population a year.

The suicide rate in Sri Lanka is close to the incidence in Russia, but that is believed to be due partly to suicide attacks by separatists against government targets.

The suicide rate in Russia has almost doubled over the last decade, according to official figures. Within Russia the suicide rate is far higher in the northern regions, some of which record about three times the national average.

The Komi region in the north recorded the highest death rate, including suicides, in the past decade. Six people killed themselves on New Year’s Day this year in Vologda town in the north, "an unprecedented phenomenon for a holiday," says local paramedic Valentina Zamyatina.

Suicide rates among minorities in the north and far eastern regions of Russia are "up to 33 times higher than the country’s average figure," says Galina Volkova, head of the Northern Minority Peoples Association in Amur in the east.

About two-thirds of suicide cases are linked to alcohol, and the majority of those killing themselves are men, official figures show. The drop in suicides during the perestroika years of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was attributed to restrictions on sale of alcohol.

The suicide attempts are inevitably far higher than the number of suicides. Last month there were 115 suicide attempts in Saratov in central Russia. Most of the attempts were alcohol-driven, and seven were ‘successful’, officials say.

"The typical suicide case will be a hard-drinking male 30 to 59 years old living in the countryside," says sociologist Irina Orlova. But about 2,800 youngsters aged five to 19 also committed suicide last year, according to figures from the General Prosecutors Office. Teenage angst and use of drugs top the list of factors in juvenile suicides.

The suicide rates have shot up due to the enormous social upheaval and the disruption to social welfare, according to federal reports. The suicide cases are related to the "ongoing disintegration of society and the general disillusionment of the population," says medical statistician Sergei Kondrichin.

An alarming rise in suicides is being reported among the Russian military. About a quarter of all military deaths in Russia are cases of suicide, according to official reports.

An increasing number of suicides are being reported among naval officers, once the proud elite of the armed forces. Fifteen officers of the Baltic Fleet killed themselves last year.

Capt Oleg Dulsky, 34, shot himself at the Kronschtadt naval base near St. Petersburg recently. A submarine commander killed himself in Polyarny near Murmansk in the north in November last year.

Many officers say they are unable to support their families on their low income, according to federal reports. Military personnel are also operating in exceptionally tough conditions, these reports say.