4 Suicides a Day in Central Kenya: Why people are seeking solace in Death

Central Kenya is mourning at least five lives lost through suicides every day and causing alarm among residents and leaders in the region.

The region is in a crisis and it requires urgent reawakening to save the lives of residents who seem deeply sunk in depression according to police records.

Nyeri County has an average of four deaths through suicide every day while Kirinyaga County has one death every day through suicide. In Murang’a County, at least four people take their own lives every week with Mathioya River and Maragua being viewed as death traps as youth between 20-35 years drown themselves.

Nyeri hence has at least 120 deaths every month with most taking their lives through hanging or drowning in rivers.

Male Suicides on the Rise in Central Kenya

Men in Central Kenya face a number of known challenges that could be reflecting on the huge number of their suicides.

Out of the 120 suicides committed in Nyeri, the majority are men who take poison, hang themselves or drown themselves in dams.

READ ALSO: 4.8 Million Kenyans Will Be Suffering from Kidney Disease by 2030 

Possible Causes

Challenges facing the Nyeri man are a little bit unique from other Counties and are slowly driving them to a crisis. These challenges among others include:

• Concentration on empowering the Girl-child Left the Boy-Child Abandoned

It is an open secret that the girl child in Kenya is empowered, this is mostly witnessed in Central Kenya and would be positive if the boy was also empowered to be able to relate with an empowered girl.

The concentration on empowering the girl became too much that the boy seemed to have been neglected and lacked sufficient guidance and empowerment. The girl felt powerful as the boy’s self-esteem got crashed yet a boy is born to be a man and lead.

The role of an African man to provide ought to have changed when the girl-child got empowered but it did not and now the man from Central Kenya is struggling to provide for a demanding woman who knows her rights and not responsibilities.

• Drug Abuse

Drug abuse, especially alcohol, has been a problem in Central Kenya for the last one decade attracting intervention from the National Government.

A majority of men in Central Kenya are referred to as ‘Daily Drinking Officer’ (DDO). They start their day with cheap liquor to clear the hangover and cannot stop hence drink the day away.

The Daily Drinking Officers cannot sire children as they have no time to spend with their wives while those that already have children cannot guide their sons on the role of a man in a family as they are ever absent.

Some are depressed and following abject poverty, their family members are too busy seeking the next meal that they are not able to detect.

The men finally begin to realize that life passed when they were in their drinking dens and that the frustrations keep on recurring. They watch the miles their age mates covered while they lay in their drunken stupor and the reality, the embarrassment, overwhelms them driving them to commit suicide.

• Unemployment

Unemployment in Central Kenya is just as rife as in the rest of the country, but the problem is most prevalent amongst men in the region.

It is easier to find a young man who is lost and has no idea where to start than to find a woman of the same age.

Employment, whether self or not, ensures one has a purposeful life and has something to look forward to each day. Shopping centers in Central Kenya are littered with men ranging between 18-35 years of age hanging around playing cards while some drink to drown the frustrations.

Lack of empowerment denies a human being the self believe they require to start up any beneficial proje