Kisii residents Residents were left shocked after a middle-aged man committed suicide due to failure to raise capital to pay rent arrears.
According to some of his fellow tenants, the man has been having frequent quarrels with his landlord that at some point led to the closure of his house.
“The man didn’t close his door and the lights were on when he committed suicide and we realized his body was hanging later in the evening as we would see into his single roomed house,” said Elkanah Monyenye.
Area Chief Edward Onyisa said that man left a note indicating to why he killed self.
The number of suicides reported in Kenya rose by 58 percent between 2008 and 2017 to reach 421, official data reveal.
Although the number of suicide cases has been rising since 2008, the data show the lowest incidents were recorded in 2010 at 75 cases.
The report also shows that more men are likely to commit suicide than women. Out of the 421 suicide cases in 2017, 330 involved men.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that close to 800,000 people commit suicide every year, which means one person every 40 seconds. Many more attempt suicide, WHO adds.
At least 12 university students have committed suicide since January in a worrying trend for education stakeholders, who are now seeking ways to address the problem.
Some of the causes of suicides in universities have been identified as depression, mental illness, relationships among students gone sour and family rows.
Cases of suicides in universities have also been recorded in previous years but many universities have always been reluctant to share statistics for fear that this could portray their institutions in a negative light.
