One suicide per 40 seconds in the world

Oslo.The candles represent every one of those who committed suicide in 2016.Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB scanpix

Between 500 and 600 people commit suicide in Norway every year. Two out of three who take their lives are men and the median age is 47, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

Nearly 800,000 people worldwide take their own lives each year, figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show.

Suicide thus takes more lives than war, WHO noted in a report earlier this year.

Although the suicide rate dropped somewhat in the period from 2010 to 2016, when the most statistics are available, the number of deaths is stable as the world’s population increases.

The UN organization believes that more needs to be done to prevent the tragedy.

“Despite progress, one person dies every 40 seconds as a result of suicide,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted in September.

According to WHO, there were 10.5 suicides per 100,000 people in the world in 2016, the last year for which there are complete statistics.

In 2016, the suicide rate in Norway was 13.3 per 100,000 population. Guyana topped the dismal statistic with 30 registered suicides per 100,000 population, followed by Russia with 26.5 suicides per 100,000 population.

Lithuania, Lesotho, Uganda, Sri Lanka, South Korea, India, Japan and the US are also high on the list.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today

Be the first to comment on "One suicide per 40 seconds in the world"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*