Village where suicide has become the norm

By Antony Gitonga                            

Nyandarua, Kenya: As the sun’s rays hit the rusty roofs, tens of farmers carrying milking cans and jembes head to their farms. They are dressed in heavy sweaters and worn-out gumboots to ward off the biting cold and dew.

This normal routine is suddenly disrupted by chilling screams from a nearby home. It turns out a 25-year-old son of the village has committed suicide by drinking a pesticide. Some of the farmers exchange knowing looks. For residents of this part of Nyandarua County, suicide has become as normal as the sound of hoes hitting the ground.

Statistics from local leaders paint a worrying picture, with some villages recording at least one suicide per week. Eerily, all cases so far involve young male adults in their early 20s or mid-30s.

Tired of this rude interruption of their usual routines, the area residents now demand an end to this wave of self-inflicted deaths.

They want anybody, anyone . . .  even the government to come up with an immediate solution.

Surprisingly, the reasons for ending lives are mundane by many standards.  But for a 30-year-old man in Kahuru village, losing Sh30,000 in a betting exercise was enough ticket to the next world through suicide.

The incident brought to five the number of people, including a Standard Eight pupil, who have taken their lives in just one month.

Incidentally, four other men from the same village are admitted at a nearby mission hospital after their suicide attempts flopped.

Following this trend, concerned religious and local leaders have called for a crisis meeting to get to the root of the problem. The most affected villages, according to the local leaders, are Kahuru, Mawingu, Gitiri and Gathara in the agriculture-rich area.

In the latest case, the man had sold farm produce and headed to the local centre for a game of poker, popularly known as karata, where he lost the money.

Nyandarua South OCPD Simon Munyao has confirmed the incident, saying the deceased was involved in a fight before heading home.

“We are told that at home he got involved in another argument with his wife over the missing cash, only to lock himself up in the bedroom and commit suicide,” he says.

Munyao has, however, downplayed cases of suicide in the area saying many families were not reporting the cases to the police.

“Some of the patients are dying while undergoing treatment in private hospitals and the cases are never reported to us,” he says.

Because suicide is culturally seen as a shameful act, families are often-times too embarrassed to admit that their kin actually killed himself or herself. Such cases, says Munyao, hardly come to the administration’s knowledge.

A doctor at the North Kinangop Catholic Hospital, popularly known as ‘Kwang’othi’, who talked to The Standard on condition of anonymity, describes the situation as worrying.

At the hospital, says the medic, they treat at least three cases of attempted suicide per week from the Kinangop area.

“Majority of the victims are middle-aged men and many have been rescued while a number have died before arriving at the facility or while undergoing treatment,” he says.

The doctor says some of the recovering patients have attributed their problems to alcohol and high levels of poverty.

Some of the suicide cases are taken to Naivasha District Hospital, which is the only government facility that serves many residents of Nyandarua.

 Michael Munene from Aids Reality Awareness Campaign Drug Abuse Prevention and Sanitation terms the problem as very serious.

 He says his organisation records three or four cases of attempted suicide every week in the county.

 “A few months ago, the cases were more rampant in Gathara area but it has now shifted to Kahuru village and we don’t know the cause,” he says.

 The leader has called for an urgent meeting to address the high number of suicide cases.

 “Majority of the victims are young men and incidentally 90 per cent of the victims smell of alcohol,” he notes.

 The organisation, which assists in rehabilitating drug users and alcoholics points at poverty, alcoholism and illiteracy as the main factors leading people to end their lives.

Tragically, many of the men who have taken their lives are newly married. According to Munene, when these men realise they cannot cater for the family, they end their lives.

 The superintendent in charge of the Naivasha District Hospital Dr Joseph Mburu says the facility handles quite a number of attempted suicide cases from Nyandarua area.

The doctor says sometimes the facility treats up to three cases per week of suicide attempts from the region.

“In many cases the victims have survived but in some extreme cases the victims have died on arrival or during treatment,” he says.

Another local leader, Joel Mwathi, points to alcoholism as one of the leading causes of illiteracy in the region, which he says  contributes greatly to the suicidal tendencies among the youth.

He says the days when Nyandarua County was considered as an education giant in the country are long gone. 

“Many of our youths have turned to alcohol and once things turn against them, they are not strong enough and thus turn to suicide,” he says.

A counsellor, Cathy Wanjohi from Lifebloom International, says that it is the trend in most countries that women attempt suicide more often than men.

She says people who take their lives tend to suffer from severe anxiety or depression before they commit suicide.

“The symptoms include moderate alcohol abuse, insomnia, severe agitation, loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy and hopelessness,” she sums up.