One suicide every 40 seconds: World Health Organization report
The research found that suicide killed more people each year than conflicts and natural catastrophes, accounting for more than half of the world's 1.5 million violent deaths annually, World Health Organization staff told reporters at its presentation in Geneva.
The report, the U.N. agency's first
on the subject, analyzed data on suicides from 172 countries, and took a decade
to compile.
Setting a goal to cut national suicide
rates by 10 percent by 2020, the organization said suicide was a major but
preventable health problem that health authorities had failed to adequately
address due to a number of complicated factors.
The most suicide-prone countries were
Guyana (44.2 per 100,000), followed by North Korea (38.5), South Korea (28.9),
Sri Lanka (28.8), Lithuania (28.2), Suriname (27.8), Mozambique (27.4), Nepal
and Tanzania (24.9 each) and Burundi (23.1).