A suicide and a murder every minute, says WHO

One person commits suicide roughly every 40 seconds, one person is murdered every 60 seconds and one person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds, the World Health Organisation said today.

Overall, WHO estimated that 1.6 million people met premature and ugly deaths in 2000.

In what it described as the most exhaustive international study into the problem, the UN health agency highlighted the extent of violence in the home, the street abuse of children and the elderly, suicide and war.

“The figures for violent death tell only part of the story,” said the report’s author Etienne Krug.

“Physical, sexual and psychological abuse occur in every country on a daily basis, undermining the health and well-being of many millions of people.”

Krug’s team spent three years writing the 346 page report, based on research from 160 experts on 170 countries.

WHO now hopes to gather even more information to fill in gaps in knowledge about what is often a hidden problem and to help governments mount national prevention campaigns aimed in particular at young people.

The report said an estimated 520,000 people were murdered in 2000 – not including unlawful deaths disguised as accidents or natural causes. For every person who died, 20-40 others were admitted to hospital with injuries.

The toll included 199,000 young people aged 10-29 who were invariably killed by other young people – often the result of alcohol and drug abuse or easy access to firearms.

It said youth homicides in the United States, in many Latin American countries and the former Soviet bloc soared, while stabilising or falling in much of Western Europe and Canada.

Within countries, there were big social and racial differences. In the United States, African-American youths are 12 times more likely to be murdered than whites.

Krug said that WHO had no plans to lobby the US or any other government for tighter gun control laws as part of the violence prevention campaigns.

“Clearly not, it’s not our role,” he said.

An estimated 57,000 young children died from abuse – often head injuries or suffocation – with pre-schoolers most at risk.

It said that millions more children were the victim of beatings – citing as an example a recent survey in South Korea where 67% of parents admitted whipping their children to discipline them, and 45% reported hitting, kicking or beating them.

The report estimated that 815,000 people killed themselves in 2000 – making suicide the 13th leading cause of death worldwide. People older than 60 were most likely to take their own life.

On average men were three times more likely to kill themselves than women. In general, about 10% of people who attempt suicide eventually kill themselves, it said.

The highest rates were in eastern Europe and the lowest in Latin America. But this masked big differences between rural and urban populations and different racial and ethnic groups within countries.

WHO Director-General Go Harlem Brundtland said she hoped the report would break taboos surrounding violence in the home and suicides.

“To many people, staying out of harm’s way is a matter of locking doors and windows. To others, escape is not possible. The threat of violence is behind those doors,” said Brundtland.

“And for those living the midst of war and conflict, violence permeates every aspect of life,” she said of the 310,000 people who died in wars