It pains us to say this, but a total of 266 people committed suicide since the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on March 18th up until October 30th.
To put things in perspective, there were 30 suicides per month or one every day during that period.
Bukit Aman Management Director Datuk Ramli Din told Kosmo! most of the cases were because of debts (25%), followed by family problems (24%) and marriage problems (23%).
Meanwhile, relationship breakups accounted for 15%, while other factors including work pressure, hallucinations, mental problems, mass media and drugs contributed 13%.
“Police statistics show those who committed suicide were mostly aged between 19 and 40 or 53% of the 266 reported cases. Those aged above 41 accounted for 24% and those between 15 and 18 accounted for 23%,” he said.
By state, Johor had the most number of suicide cases (47), followed by Selangor (39), Kuala Lumpur (28) and then other states.
Also, 78% of all the cases involved men.
Suicide by hanging was the most prevalent at 189 cases, while 37 took their own lives by jumping off buildings (14 cases), self injury (13) as well as taking sleeping pills and inhalation of burnt charcoal smoke and exhaust fumes (13).
We should all play our part in making sure these statistics don’t get worse.
Check out our article on debunking the common misconceptions about seeking help for mental health.
by Kyle Roshen Jacob
