North Korean leader Kim Jongun has order local governments to ban suicides. Exact figures have not been released because data from North Korea is kept secret. According to the government officials Radio Free Asia the data shown the suicide committed in the families. However the South Korean intelligence agency estimated in May that the number of suicides had increased round about 40% from the previous year.
In the policy of Kim Jongun called suicide a “teaser of socialism” and said local government officials would be held collectively responsible for it, if they failed to stop suicides among those under their jurisdiction. According to the report of Radio Free Asia.
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The order was also mentioned at numerous emergency meetings in North Korean ministries. An official in North Ham Jong province in the northeastern Korea told Radio Free Asia. In addition, the data on the number of suicides were presented showing the examples of suicides in all over families.
Official added that press conference attendees were “shocked by the release of a suicide note criticizing the state“. Another Liang Jiang province official told Radio Free Asia that suicide had a bigger impact on the community than starvation.
According to the news agency; “No one can think of a countermeasure right now because the majority of the suicides were caused by extreme poverty and starvation”. Discussions at the gathering included vivid examples of suicide situations, including more instances in which entire families committed suicide.
World Health Organization said that in 2019 there were 8.2 suicides every 100,000 inhabitants in North Korea. However North Korea ranks 45th globally in terms of suicide rates.