JEDDAH, 26 November 2007 — Suicide cases in Saudi Arabia are on the increase. The Health Ministry reported recently that at least 266 people, including expatriates, took their own lives in 2006. During the same period, 295 were murdered.
The ministry’s legal medical centers received 1,912 cases of deaths from unknown causes last year. The report said 1,632 of them, or 85.3 percent, were men while 34.5 percent (659) were Saudis.
Expatriates accounted for 77 percent of suicides last year with Indians (203) taking 43 percent, followed by Bangladeshis (155), Pakistanis (141), Yemenis (102) and Egyptians (97). “Of the total deaths last year, 957 or 50.1 percent were not natural and suicides represented 27 percent of such deaths,” the report said, adding that the reasons for 93 deaths were not known.
The ministry pointed out that 79 percent of people (212) who committed suicide were men. The number of Saudis who committed suicide was 100 or 37.6 percent of the total and Saudi men accounted for 82 percent and women 12 percent.
The largest number of suicides were in the Riyadh region, followed by 253 in Asir, 198 in the Makkah region, 170 in the Eastern Province and 142 in the Madinah region.
According to Dr. Abdul Razak Al-Hamad, consultant in mental medicine at King Saud University, the exact figures for suicides in Saudi Arabia are not available. He said compared to other countries the rate of suicides in Saudi Arabia — 1 out of 100,000 persons — is the lowest in the world.
Al-Hamad attributed the low rate of suicide cases in the Kingdom to people’s commitment to Islamic teachings that prohibit suicide, as well as to social and economic stability. In the US, suicide is the eighth main reason of death.
The largest numbers of suicides are in the age group 30 to 39 and they represent about 44.3 percent of the total, followed by those aged 20-29, which accounts for 33.6 percent. As many as 63 percent of people ended their lives by hanging while 12 percent jumped from a high place.
Businessmen and company directors are listed at the top of the list of people committing suicide, followed by policemen and doctors.
