The horrible news have been circulated by the mass media – an “epidemic of suicides” swept across Siverodonetsk in Luhansk oblast. Indeed, five suicides took place in the city of 100,000 in the course of just nine days. They began on November 20, when a 25-year-girl fell from the seventh floor and landed on the eaves. She had multiple injuries but survived. That same day a young man, 17, fell to death from the ninth floor. On November 24, a 23-year-old man lost his life after falling out of the eighth floor on 55 Hvardiiska St. Friends of the deceased say that he had a nasty argument with his girlfriend just before the fatal incident. Later, on November 27, a girl aged 20 jumped out of the second floor, intoxicated.
The police are looking into these suicides right now. “Law enforcement agencies have checked to see whether these were suicides or crimes. As of today, all five cases have been recognized as suicides,” Tetiana Pohukai, chief of the Luhansk Oblast Police Department, has told The Day. As long as she has worked in the police, it is the first case when so many suicides took place in such a short time in a relatively small city. “I asked to have statistics for suicides for the past years to be analyzed in order to determine what the present cases may be linked to. Perhaps, they have to do with the residential district, season of the year, lunar eclipses, etc. And perhaps it will be up to psychologists, rather than the police, to figure out these cases,” she adds.
Remarkably, in all cases people jumped out of windows in high rises. We asked Iryna POHORIELOVA, a psychologist and court expert at the Luhansk Oblast Psychiatric Hospital, for her opinion. “This is a very atypical case. Since I started my professional career, we have never had so many unrelated suicides in such a brief span of time, especially of a type that is not as common as hanging oneself. Incidentally, suicides are not rare among men of this age, because it is a period of self-realization for them. Their relationships with the other sex and determining their position in society play an extremely important role. But it is indeed atypical of women. Of course, the young are always struggling, and now their condition is exacerbated by the high unemployment rate precisely among young people. Another possibility is that Siverodonetsk is a small depressed city where ambitious people find it hard to get a worthy job and salary. Or it could be a seasonal phenomenon, because all problems seem more difficult in autumn that in any other season. In any case, a comprehensive analysis of these suicides definitely needs to be carried out.”
