Russia registered another four teen suicides on Monday, a month after a spate of teen suicides roiled the nation, the national Investigation Committee said.
A 14-year-old girl from Kaluga hanged herself with the belt of her kimono at her home on Monday afternoon. Her mother found the body. The girl had been due to attend a judo contest in the nearby city of Tula.
Earlier on Monday, an 11-year-old boy hanged himself in a shed in the city of Tuva, Syberia. Another boy who had run away from home was found hanged in a social help center in the city of Kirov and a third boy, 13, hanged himself in the southern city of Krymsk.
One other teen - a 14-year-old girl - jumped from the balcony of a fifth-floor flat on Monday but survived. The girl, who was allegedly drunk, tried to kill herself because of an unrequited love.
Russia ranks third in the world in terms of the number of suicides committed by adolescents, with average suicide rate among the adolescent population more than three times higher than the world’s average, according to UNICEF data published in November 2011.
While the level of adolescent depression in Western countries does not exceed 5 percent, it hovers at about 20 percent in Russia. Statistics show that 45 percent of girls and 27 percent of young men in Russia have had suicidal thoughts, UNICEF added.
