Suicides surge in post-coup Myanmar

The suicide price started rising in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued to extend because the coup as monetary hardship, political repression and the collapse of the healthcare system take a toll on psychological well being.

By FRONTIER

For 5 days in late August, members of the Regional Rescue Drowning crew led a futile seek for the our bodies of Ma Ei Wai Tun, 24, and her three-year-old daughter within the Ayeyarwady River. Thirty rescuers utilizing three boats scoured the river in Bago Area’s Pyay after the girl jumped from a bridge along with her baby.

The Regional Rescue Drowning crew often solely spends three days making an attempt to retrieve our bodies – one for underwater operations, and two for looking the floor of waterways, however on the request of the sufferer’s household that they had prolonged the search.

“It was one among our most exhausting search operations, and likewise one of the emotional. Regardless of trying to find 5 days, we may discover no hint of the our bodies,” mentioned Ko Thae Maung, chief of the rescue crew.

Thae Maung instructed Frontier that the variety of operations to recuperate the our bodies of people that have died by suicide has risen this 12 months in comparison with earlier years. The crew retrieved eight our bodies from the Ayeyarwady River and the South Nawin dam close to Pyay within the first eight months of this 12 months and half of them concerned suicides, he mentioned. 

One other rescue group in Pyay, Myanmar Rescue Pyay, agreed that there had been a rise in suicides this 12 months. The group instructed Frontier they have been conscious of 10 funerals to this point this 12 months involving suicide instances, roughly double what they might usually count on for your entire 12 months.

Some high-profile instances have captured nationwide consideration and highlighted a few of the points driving the rise in suicides – primarily political repression and financial mismanagement within the wake of the 2021 army coup.

For a lot of in Myanmar, the story of Daw Lon Ma Nyein Chan was notably heart-breaking. The daughter of a well known dissident poet and former political prisoner, Aung Pwint, Lon Ma Nyein Chan was married to political activist and Nationwide League for Democracy supporter U Kyaw Hla Moe. Two days after her husband was sentenced to 2 years in jail by a junta-controlled court docket this April, Lon Ma Nyein Chan took her life at her residence within the Ayeyarwady Area capital, Pathein, prompting a public outpouring of grief.  

In one other incident that shocked the nation, a welder died from self-immolation, setting himself on fireplace exterior a authorities electrical energy workplace in Mandalay’s Kyaukpadaung city amidst widespread electrical energy cuts which had devastated his enterprise. Media reported the main points of his suicide be aware, which requested for electrical energy to be restored to the individuals 24 hours a day.

Compounding crises

Psychological well being specialists say the suicide figures in Myanmar started rising even earlier than the coup, throughout mass job losses brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. However the army takeover has additional deteriorated the financial system, induced widespread instability and brough concerning the collapse of the healthcare system, all of which is now contributing to a psychological well being disaster.

“Persons are struggling psychological well being issues linked to the political, financial, social and well being state of affairs within the nation, and the better the psychological trauma, the larger their psychological well being disaster shall be,” Dr Ni Ni Lwin*, a medical psychiatrist with 19 years of expertise, instructed Frontier. 

“The psychological well being disaster within the nation is growing increasingly more,” she added.

Her observations have been echoed by Dr Could Zaw Naing, wellness managing director at Citta Consultancy, a community of psychological well being and psychosocial assist suppliers that providers round 50 sufferers every month.

“If their trauma is just not handled, it may well result in suicide,” Could Zaw Naing mentioned.

She mentioned a mixture of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political state of affairs had the potential to wreck the psychological well being of many individuals.

“The pandemic is just not over but. Because the Burmese proverb says, ‘be inflicted with one torment upon one other,’” Could Zaw Naing added, referring to the assorted crises. 

Suicide is a worldwide public well being drawback, however like many world issues, it’s not distributed evenly. Whereas the World Well being Group says that somebody ends their life each 40 seconds, 77 % of suicides happen in low-and middle-income nations. The WHO says that for each suicide, there are prone to be one other 20 individuals who have tried the act.

There’s often not one trigger however a spread of complicated and intersecting components main individuals to think about the act. Monetary stress is one contributing issue on the rise in Myanmar. 

The World Financial institution mentioned in July that poverty in Myanmar has doubled in comparison with March 2020, with round 40pc of the inhabitants now residing beneath the nationwide poverty line, wiping out almost a decade of progress on poverty discount.

“Stress has grow to be a group drawback as a result of it occurs to everybody, and most of these who die by suicide don’t speak to psychological well being consultants similar to psychologists and counsellors like us,” mentioned Ni Ni Lwin, the psychiatrist. 

A Frontier assessment of on-line media studies because the coup discovered references to 44 deaths by suicide (30 males and 14 girls). Of the deaths reported, most have been aged between 20 and 50. The victims have been from a spread of backgrounds, however almost 20 % have been both members of the regime or energetic opponents of it.

These deaths included two army officers from Shan State, a soldier from Chin State, two riot policemen from Mandalay and Bago areas and one other policeman from Haigyi Island in Ayeyarwady.  Additionally included within the figures have been public servants who joined the mass Civil Disobedience strike in defiance of the coup – a nurse from Mandalay metropolis and a trainer in Tamu in Sagaing Area who was working at a college run by the Nationwide Unity Authorities.

Most households haven’t publicly mentioned the deaths or what their family members could have been going by means of on the time.

Of the 44 deaths by suicide that have been reviewed, 27 occurred in August and September this 12 months, indicating a continued rise. No revealed knowledge is offered for comparability to earlier years, however all of the consultants interviewed mentioned the numbers are considerably larger than they’re used to seeing. 

The Myanmar Police Drive didn’t reply to Frontier’s requests for remark or present official knowledge. It isn’t identified if knowledge on the variety of suicide instances nationally is at the moment being collected.

Suicides among the many diaspora 

Suicides are additionally being reported amongst Myanmar working in Thailand and Malaysia, with observers noting an uptick within the variety of migrant staff taking their lives.

In Thailand, which has the best variety of Myanmar migrant staff, there have been 5 deaths by suicide between Could and August, in keeping with the Help Alliance Committee for Myanmar Staff. In February, Thai media reported {that a} Myanmar particular person was discovered useless in a Thai jail, assumed to have taken his personal life.

“Those that died have been younger individuals who got here to work in Thailand due to the worsening financial state of affairs after the army coup,” U Khaing Gyi from the charity group instructed Frontier.

“In earlier years, there was just one case of suicide amongst migrant staff in a 12 months. Now we’ve got seen 4 or 5 suicides in succession after the coup, and we expect the variety of most of these deaths would possibly improve,” he mentioned.

In a very horrifying incident in Malaysia in August, a 38-year-old Myanmar man jumped from a freeway overpass in Kuala Lumpur after throwing off his three younger youngsters. The person, his eight-year-old daughter and six-year-old son died within the fall, whereas the three-year-old son survived.

Malaysian each day newspaper The Star reported that the person’s 28-year-old spouse instructed police her husband had threatened to take his life a number of instances. She mentioned he had struggled with psychological well being issues since contracting COVID-19 a 12 months earlier, however gave no additional particulars. One other Malaysian media report mentioned the person and his spouse have been among the many 185,920 refugees and asylum-seekers from Myanmar registered with UNHCR in Malaysia on the finish of August.

About three weeks after that incident in Kuala Lumpur, one other suicide of a Myanmar man was reported within the southern metropolis of Johor Bahru. 

“This younger man had underlying ailments when he was contaminated with COVID-19, and he turned depressed and took his life,” mentioned a member of the Kepong Free Funeral Service Society, which gives funeral providers for Myanmar migrants.

“We organized the funerals of 4 suicides instances between January and August this 12 months,” he added. 

Shortages exacerbate psychological well being disaster

Assets for psychological well being in Myanmar, already missing earlier than the coup, have additional collapsed as tens of 1000’s of public healthcare staff joined CDM, together with psychiatrists.

A former psychological well being officer who labored for the well being ministry earlier than the coup instructed Frontier that Yangon’s three medical universities are the one ones which supply psychiatry specialist coaching. Earlier than the coup, they have been capable of practice a mean of 30 psychiatrists a 12 months every, with most ending up within the non-public sector. Their present capability is prone to be considerably diminished because of the variety of educators and college students collaborating in CDM.

The previous well being officer additionally mentioned that there have been lower than 150 psychiatrists working at public hospitals all through your entire nation.

“The necessity for psychiatrists at authorities hospitals in areas and states has all the time been there, and within the current state of affairs it has grow to be worse,” he mentioned.

Area journeys aimed toward reaching individuals with psychological well being wants in rural areas was once undertaken repeatedly by groups that included psychiatrists from authorities hospitals. In a merciless irony, these visits stopped in 2020 due to journey restrictions aimed toward stopping the unfold of COVID-19 and by no means restarted.

Frontier contacted Professor Dr Solar Lin, a advisor psychiatrist from the Yangon Psychological Well being Hospital run by the junta’s well being ministry, concerning the outreach programme however she declined to be interviewed.

Ni Ni Lwin, the psychiatrist, mentioned discipline journeys had performed a significant position in figuring out and treating individuals with psychological well being issues and elevating group consciousness.

In Yangon, she has supplied remedy and counselling to about 200 sufferers to this point this 12 months and mentioned about half of them had thought of suicide. Ni Ni Lwin mentioned her sufferers had a various vary of psychiatric circumstances, with greater than half experiencing bipolar dysfunction, post-traumatic stress dysfunction or psychosis and others having alcohol and drug-related circumstances, or schizophrenia.

As growing numbers of persons are struggling to cope with Myanmar’s varied political, well being and financial issues, psychological well being specialists urge anybody with issues to hunt counselling and remedy, if they will discover it. 

In addition they emphasise the position that relations or shut buddies can play in encouraging family members with psychological well being issues to achieve out and search assist.

“Regardless of how a lot well being professionals assist, the assistance gained’t be as profitable with out the position of the relations,” Could Zaw Naing mentioned.

“If we will’t construct particular person resilience in the neighborhood and take preventive measures to heal trauma, there shall be extra psychological well being issues to cope with in the long term,” she added.

Psychological well being consultants interviewed by Frontier say behavioural signs that may point out an individual is having suicidal ideation embody sudden modifications in conduct, similar to uncharacteristic recklessness or risk-taking, a downturn in efficiency at work or at school, speaking about getting affairs so as and/or gifting away prized possessions, frequent discussions of dying and dying, withdrawing from family and friends members and shedding curiosity in actions or points that have been as soon as of nice significance.

Different psychosocial signs can embody dramatic temper swings, a diminished sense of self-worth, anxiousness, hopelessness, and social withdrawal. 

“If these sorts of signs are seen in an individual, their relations must watch out. They are able to forestall suicide makes an attempt earlier than they occur,” Maw Zaw Naing urged. 

* denotes using pseudonym for security causes