Rise in suicide in Iranian Kurdistan: rights groups
Two sisters in Mariwan committed suicide together on Thursday, according to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights. They were Amina Saidi, age 30, and Farida Saidi, age 35. They were poor and sold mountain vegetables.
"In Bijar, 544 individuals have been identified as being in need of suicide watch. While in the whole Kurdistan Province 6,113, are under suicide watch," Hussein Jafari, the head of healthcare there, told HRANA, a human rights agency activist news agency.
In the last year, there have been 60 suicide attempts including 39 men and 21 women, according to Jafari, and four of the attempts resulted in death.
On Wednesday, a Kurdish soldier from Piranshahr in West Azerbaijan province, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Kurdish provinces are among the poorest provinces in Iran with high rate of unemployment. Bahram Nasrolahizadeh, the planning and budget head in Kurdistan Province told Tasnim News agency in January that the unemployment rate in Kurdistan province is 16.3 percent — the third highest among all provinces.
Kurdpa, a Kurdish human rights news agency, reported that the provinces of Kurdistan, Ilam, Kermanshah, and Lorestan had the highest suicide last year across Iran.
Seven unofficial border crossings between the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Kurdish provinces in Iran were closed in early May. Their closures have affected the local economies, with rights organizations sounding alarms over the rising number of porters’ deaths. The US withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and subsequent economic sanctions has forced large multinational corporations to choose to cease business in Iran.