Metro trains are a transportation lifeline in the crowded capital Cairo, with more than two and a half million people using them every day.

Occasionally, the metro is suspended for several minutes during a power cut but on January 22 at Otba Station in central Cairo, trains stood still for 12 minutes during the removal of the corpse of a man who had jumped off the metro platform onto the electric rails.

Metro trains are a transportation lifeline in the crowded capital Cairo, with more than two and a half million people using them every day.

Occasionally, the metro is suspended for several minutes during a power cut but on January 22 at Otba Station in central Cairo, trains stood still for 12 minutes during the removal of the corpse of a man who had jumped off the metro platform onto the electric rails.

The young victim had no identity card with him and authorities gave no further information. Another suicide took place the very next day at Methalat Station, east of Cairo. Then, on January 24, at Faisal Station in Giza Governorate, twenty-seven-year-old Fayed leapt before an approaching train and died. His body was buried without performing an autopsy but his family said he was suffering psychological pressure as he was unemployed.

But the incidents spark questions on why this trend has emerged and what provokes people to commit suicide in a public setting.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every 40 seconds a person dies by suicide somewhere in the world. “Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative,” WHO’s first such report, indicated that suicidal behaviors should always be dealt with by a psychiatrist.

The report added, that suicidal feelings are not uncommon when a person has an escalating sense of being helpless against life pressures, though people rarely act on this emotion. Egypt has the problem that people do not seek psychological therapy. A person could be suffering depression and contemplating about committing suicide but will often pass under the radar.

‘Intentional self-harm‘

There are no precise official statistics of the number of suicide cases in Egypt. Daftar Ahwal (Civil Affairs) Blog, an independent media platform, registered 165 suicides in Egypt in the first half of 2015 and six of them were males aged between 30-45 years committed suicide in different metro stations. 

Official authorities do not recognize the existence of suicide cases, but a closer look at the Central Apparatus for Public Mobilization and Statistics’ report, showed that the Annual Statistics Book registered 155 deaths (129 males and 20 females) in 2013 to be caused by ‘intentional self-harm’. It is interesting that such justification was never indicated again in the Annual Book’s later editions. 

The WHO’s reports, on the other hand, revealed 1,264 suicides (433 females and 831 males) during the last four years in Egypt, but the exact number of suicide cases could not be determined in a country whose population exceeds 90,000,000 people. 

Stigmatised families

Law No.143 of 1994 stipulates that deaths are to be reported to the health offices of the Ministry of Health within 24 hours. A doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed the importance of suspecting the accounts of the dead’s families. He said they often seek to obtain a report which says death was natural and only caused by acute low blood circulation or some infection as they do not want to be stigmatized in their communities. Doctors frequently cooperate with them to hide the fact that the death was by suicide. For this reason, accurate statistics are near impossible to come by. 

“Suicide rates in Egypt are not high compared to international rates but we have other alternatives,” said Ahmed Abul Wafa, a psychiatrist and head of the Media Department at the General Secretariat of Mental Health.

Many practices, he explained, are deemed as alternatives to committing suicide including staying home for weeks without interacting with people. Such tendencies should be communicated to a psychologist as often the suicidal person is only deterred from committing suicide by the fact it is forbidden for both Muslims and Christians.

Prostest or personal?

The three suicides which took place at metro stations coincided with the Egyptian Revolution’s fifth anniversary, fuelling suspicion that they could be a kind of political protest.

Abul Wafa said that those committing suicide can either be mentally ill or have a message to deliver but he did not see any political implications from the recent cases, instead viewing the deaths as a protest against life.

Meanwhile, the suicide rate continues to climb. Recent cases include a fifty-one-year-old doctor who hanged himself in his house in Ain Shams, east of Cairo and a twenty-four-year-old housewife from Beheira who poisoned herself because of her inability to become a mother. In light of this situation, the General Secretariat of Mental Health’s move to designate a hotline for giving psychological advice is important.

Instead of blaming the victims or ignoring this dangerous phenomenon altogether, this service aims to boost awareness of those who have already attempted suicide or are deliberating it, in a bid to make them reconsider before it is too late.