De zelfmoorden van het leger hoogst in 26 jaar

Door PAULINE JELINEK

Militairen van het leger begingen vorig jaar zelfmoord aan het hoogste tarief in 26 jaar, en een meer dan kwart deed dit terwijl het dienen in Irak en Afghanistan, volgens een nieuw militair rapport.

Het rapport, dat door de Geassoci�ërde Pers voor zijn geplande versieDonderdag wordt verkregen, vond er 99 bevestigde zelfmoorden onder actieve dienstmilitairen in 2006, omhoog van 88 het vorige jaar en het hoogst sinds de 102 zelfmoorden in 1991 waren.

„Irak was de gemeenschappelijkste plaatsingsplaats voor beide (zelfmoorden) en pogingen,“ het bovengenoemde rapport.

The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars and 71 who weren’t. About twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war, the report said.

Preliminary numbers for the first half of this year indicate the number of suicides could decline across the service in 2007 but increase among troops serving in the wars, officials said.

The increases for 2006 came as Army officials worked to set up a number of new and stronger programs for providing mental health care to a force strained by the longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the global counterterrorism war entering its sixth year.

Failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs were factors motivating the soldiers to commit suicide, according to the report.

“In addition, there was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and number of days deployed” in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops are participating in the war effort, it said. The same pattern seemed to hold true for those who not only attempted, but succeeded in killing themselves.

There also “was limited evidence to support the view that multiple … deployments are a risk factor for suicide behaviors,” it said.

About a quarter of those who killed themselves had a history of at least one psychiatric disorder. Of those, about 20 percent had been diagnosed with a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder and/or depression; and 8 percent had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, including post traumatic stress disorder — one of the signature injuries of the conflict in Iraq.

Firearms were the most common method of suicide. Those who attempted suicide but didn’t succeed tended more often to take overdoses and cut themselves.

In a service of more than a half million troop, the 99 suicides amounted to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000 — the highest in the past 26 years, the report said. The average rate over those years has been 12.3 per 100,000.

The rate for those serving in the wars stayed about the same, 19.4 per 100,000 in 2006, compared with 19.9 in 2005.

The Army said the information was compiled from reports collected as part of its suicide prevention program — reports required for all “suicide-related behaviors that result in death, hospitalization or evacuation” of the soldier. It can take considerable time to investigate a suicide and, in fact, the Army said that in addition to the 99 confirmed suicides last year, there are two other deaths suspected as suicides in which investigations were pending.

Comment on 'Army suicides highest in 26 years' :

RSS TrackBack URL

Related News: