NATIONAL University of Science and Technology (Nust) Vice Chancellor Professor Mqhele Dlodlo has said suicide cases in the country must be treated as a looming national crisis amid revelations that 1 641 people took their lives in 2018.

Addressing delegates during a two-day Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention Seminar at the University campus which focused on mental health issues and finding ways to prevent them, Prof Dlodlo said statistics showed that 1 641 cases of suicide were recorded in 2018 while 1 838 people perished through road traffic accidents the same year.

University students are part of the statistics although it could not be established exactly how many of them have taken their lives.

“According to WHO, 1,3 percent or 1 641 deaths were due to suicides. To put this in perspective, in the same year, 2018, it was reported that 1 838 people died due to road accidents. What this clearly indicates is that we must treat suicides in Zimbabwe as a looming crisis just the way we do road traffic accidents,” said Prof Dlodlo.

He added that most cases of suicide were by hanging.
“Most such deaths are by hanging. Police reported 142 such cases in the first three months of 2019,” Prof Dlodlo said.

The Nust Vice Chancellor said the seminar was the first one to be held and hoped that similar programmes were going to be implemented in other institutions.-State media