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| Sunday, 22 September 2002 |
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Effective campaign : Record decline in suicide rate by JAYAMPATHY JAYASINGHE An effective campaign set in motion by the Presidential Task Force on Suicides in 1995, has drastically reduced suicides which has slumped by 50 percent over the years, reports say. Statistics on suicide show that 3,778 men and 1,177 women committed suicide in the year 2001 compared to 4,034 men and 1,378 women in the year 2000. However, the disturbing factor is that persons as young as 16 and elderly persons over 60 had committed suicide during this period. According to Police the common form is by hanging, drowning, shooting, self inflicted burning, jumping before a moving train, by swallowing poisonous substances, etc and the reasons attributed for such deaths are as depression over love affair, poverty, failing an examination, reprimands by parents or teachers, unemployment, mental illnesses etc. Mrs, Nalini Ellawela, Director of the Mel Medura, an NGO that offers counselling for drug addicts and depressed persons says the suicide rate in Sri Lanka has slumped from 8,000 odd cases in 1995 to 4,955 in 2001. She attributed this due to an effective campaign carried out by the Presidential Task Force. Mrs. Elawela said depressed persons with suicidal tendencies could be saved by timely intervention by counselling etc. Professor Nandasena Ratnapala, the eminent sociologist says it is difficult to say exactly why people commit suicide. However several factors such as socio-economic problems, addiction to alcohol and diseases are the main reasons. The Argarapatana Police when contacted by the Sunday Observer regarding four young persons who committed suicide by leaping to their deaths by jumping through an abyss at the World's- End at Horton Place said that they have no record as to how many persons had committed suicide in the past from this spot. But as far as they know 14 persons, 5 couples and a priest had committed suicide from 1997 up to now by jumping into the abyss which is nearly 3,000 feet deep. According to police, many who bade farewell at the World's End had left behind a note or their personal belongings for their kith and kin to identify them when they later call over there. The bodies of victims who leap from the World's End is recovered from Balangoda police area. The World's End suddenly came into spotlight somewhere in 1977 when a foreign couple committed suicide by jumping into the ravine. Several others too have lost their lives by drowning at the bottom of the Baker's Falls, located at Horton Place, during the past, the police said. |
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