- Up to five cases are reported daily and authorities blame the trend on mental distress.
- Police handled 499 cases in 2019 and 575 in 2020. At least 313 people are reported to have taken their lives between January and July 2021.
Image: THE STAR:
Police are investigating an incident in which the body of a man was found at the waiting bay of an assistant chief’s office in Jericho Lumumba estate, Nairobi.
The area assistant chief told police she was reporting to the office when she stumbled on the lifeless body at the waiting bay Wednesday.
The body did not have any physical injuries at that time and police who visited the scene said he was aged about 60.
He did not have identification documents at that time.
Police moved the body to the mortuary pending identification and autopsy to establish how he died.
Meanwhile, a 36-year-old man died by suicide after he swallowed poison in Dagoretti’s Kiuru area.
The man identified as Samuel Karanja was found lying motionless in his house by his relatives who rushed him to hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police who visited the house said they recovered a bottle of insecticide that he is suspected to have consumed.
A suicide note and a receipt he got from a veterinary agency he bought the insecticide were recovered from his pocket.
Police say they are investigating the incident.
And in Kasarani area, Nairobi, the body of a 23-year-old man was found in his house after an apparent suicide.
Stephen Njoroge had taken long to wake up prompting the caretaker at the Prime Apartment to go check on him.
The caretaker told police she saw the body hanging on the window grill with a piece of a bed sheet around his neck.
Police were called to the scene and broke in where they established Njoroge had died several hours earlier.
The motive for the incident was not immediately known.
The body was moved to the mortuary pending autopsy.
Cases of suicide have been on the rise in the country amid calls to address the trend. Up to five cases are reported daily and authorities blame the trend on mental distress.
Police handled 499 cases in 2019 and 575 in 2020. At least 313 people are reported to have taken their lives between January and July 2021.
The majority of the victims were male, police reports say.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says such cases are attributed to joblessness, the breakup of relationships or a death, academic failures or pressures, legal difficulties, financial difficulties, bullying, previous suicide attempts, history of suicide in a family, alcoholism and substance misuse, depression and bipolar disorder.
Globally, close to 800,000 people die of suicide every year with an estimated 78 per cent of cases occurring in low- and middle-income countries.