Average 12 persons commit suicide daily in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 13:32 GMT]
An average of twelve persons commit suicide in Sri Lanka everyday and ten times of that number attempt to commit suicide everyday, according to Lanka Sumithirayo, a counseling service and the VSO, an international development charity organization based in Colombo, quoting police reports to mark the International Day of Prevention of Suicide Friday.

4,120 persons committed suicide in 2008 alone and 3,260 of them were males.

Drugs, mental diseases, and personality disorders are identified as major causes for suicide and agricultural pesticide poisoning was the major means for committing suicide.

Sumithrayo Colombo center director Nalini Ellawala blamed media for promoting suicide by highlighting such incidents in news reports.