Suicide in Lesotho
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A 2019 World Health Organization report indicated that Lesotho had a suicide rate of 87.5 per 100,000 people. This is about 10 times higher than the global suicide rate of 9.0 per 100,000 people for 2019. By comparison, Guyana, the second highest country on the list, had a suicide rate of 40.9 per 100,000.
Lesotho's suicide rate reached its highest number in 2014, with 116.2 suicides per 100,000 people. The rate has been slowly dropping ever since.
According to 2020 data by the World Health Organization, 1,539 people died by suicide in Lesotho that year, accounting for 4.62% of total deaths in the country. This makes it the 7th most common cause of death in Lesotho.
The suicide rate is significantly higher among men than among women in Lesotho, with the amount of men committing suicide being over three times higher than women.
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Risk factors
Reasons behind the suicide rates in Lesotho include poverty, unemployment, bad living conditions and gender-based violence. Evidence suggests a relationship between suicidal behaviour and economical variables, affecting countries with high poverty rates.
Stigma against mental illness and lack of mental health services have been cited as major factors against suicide prevention in Lesotho. Lesotho has no national mental health policy and the country's only psychiatric unit has not had a psychiatrist since 2017.
Experts have also highlighted that addictions and misuse of drugs and alcohol and a lack of mental health counselling as factors behind Lesotho's high suicide rate.