Suicide rate among youth on the rise in Iraq

Mustafa Saadoun

Oct 5, 2020

This picture taken on May 10, 2019, shows an Iraqi military vehicle driving along the Jadiriya bridge crossing the Tigris River in the center of the capital, Baghdad. Almost 200 people took their own lives in Iraq in the first four months of 2019, according to the government's Human Rights Commission. A senior police source told AFP that authorities had rescued 36 people, mostly men, attempting suicide between January and April. This follows a rise in suicides from 383 in 2016 to 519 last year recorded by the parliament's human rights committee. — AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images

The Baghdad Police Directorate rescued an 18-year-old girl who was trying to commit suicide at Al-Jadriya Bridge in Baghdad on Sept. 26. The directorate has rescued dozens of others in similar situations.

On Sept. 23, a young man in the oil-rich Al-Basra province, which suffers from negligence and bad services, committed suicide under “vague circumstances.” A week earlier, a 16-year-old boy hanged himself in a shop in Baghdad.