Eighth death reported in wave of teen suicides in Russia

[News_Editor]

Eighth death reported in wave of teen suicides in Russia

2012-02-15 15:19:33 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOSCOW, RUSSIA (BNO NEWS) -- A teenage boy committed suicide in southwest Russia late last week, making it the eighth death in a series of teen suicides throughout Russia in the past week, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Authorities in the Russian federal subject of Krasnodar Krai reported that a 13-year-old boy hanged himself on Saturday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported on Tuesday. No other details about the circumstances of the death were immediately released.

The wave of teen suicides began on February 7 when two teenage girls, identified as 12-year-old Yelizaveta Petsylya and 14-year-old Anastasia Korolyova, jumped out of the window of an apartment building in Moscow as they held hands. The girls reportedly feared punishment after truanting from school for about two weeks.

The next day, on February 8, a 15-year-old boy jumped out of the window of an apartment building in Moscow after, according to investigators, a family quarrel. Few other details were released about the death.

Then on Thursday last week, a teenager hanged himself in the village of Iglina in Bashkortostan, reportedly due to relationship problems. In addition, a 12-year-old resident of the Krasnoyarsk region was found hanged in his apartment while a seventh grader of the Tambov region also hanged himself.

On Saturday, a ninth-grade girl jumped from a window in the Perovo region of Moscow.

Russia's teen suicide rate is the sixth highest in the world and the highest in Europe. The Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov says about 4,000 suicide attempts are committed by teenagers in Russia annually and in about 1,500 cases the teenager dies.

According to UNICEF, the level of adolescent depression in Russia is hovering at about 20 percent, while in Western countries it does not exceed 5 percent. Statistics show that 45 percent of girls and 27 percent of young men in Russia have had thoughts of suicide.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-02-15