Haunted by suicide

On February 3, Kenson Nyondo woke up to the worst shock of his life when his son, Alinane, set himself on fire after raping his mother in a grass-thatched house.

Still bleeding, the 84-year-old father recounted with grief how the 41-year-old son “run wild like a beast” in the wee hours that dry Saturday in Mwaulambya, Chitipa.

“I failed to rescue my wife as she was being raped by her own son. Alinane was possessed by evil spirits. Death was haunting him. He severely wounded us and he would have killed me had I not escaped into a cassava field,” he recalls.

Nyondo’s head was still bandaged and his clothes bloodstained when we interviewed him at Chitipa District Hospital. He was still on his sickbed, being treated for multiple injuries, when the ashy remains of his son were buried.

‘‘He bashed my head with a sharp metal. I nearly collapsed,’’ he recounts.

The same day, Beloni  Mutelekesha, 40, hanged himself to a roof of his home in Namuyemba Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Mwaulambya, after quarrelling with his wife.

Suicides have become a public concern in Chitipa which has registered five cases in three months.

“In fact, all of these suicides occurred in Mwabulabya,” says Chitipa Police Station spokesperson Gladwell Simwaka.

T/A Mwabulambya say it is confusing that traditional rituals have not exorcised “the ghost of suicide” in his area.

“When a person commits suicide, we bury the remains the same day at the place where it occurred. There is no mourning or speeches. We do this to banish the spirit of suicide from our midst, but we are confused that this ancestral practice is not helping much,” he states.

But the devil could be hiding in police files. According to Simwaka, suicides are typically higher among married men than in women.

“Most of these cases involve men struggling to accept and squarely face disagreements with their wives. They just hang themselves, leaving children helpless,’’ he says.

Last year, the police recorded 11 suicides—almost one case per month—with most of the victims hanging themselves.

In the police station’s victim support unit (VSU), men constituted just two out of over 1 000 clients who dropped in to report cases of domestic violence.

“Most men find it difficult to open up when faced by violence from their wives. They think reporting such cases are a weakness because they grow up hearing that a man does not cry,” says Simwaka.

Like many districts, Chitipa has no non-governmental organisation (NGO) that directly deals with violence against men. Most of them mainly focus on women’s rights.

Chitipa district commissioner Michael Chimbalanga says there are many risk factors driving up the spate of suicides in the district.

He asked change agents to sensitise communities to reduce suicides.

“Most of the five suicide cases were due to the interpersonal and social difficulties, including family conflicts as well as alcohol and drug use,” he says.

There is a similar surge in suicides in Mzimba which registered 16 cases in 2016 and 19 last year.

In January, the district registered three cases in a week—including Damiano Banda, 32, who poisoned himself after being denied sex.

“On the day, his girlfriend told him to give her money first, but after failing to produce the money, Banda went to Embangweni Trading Centre and bought pesticides. He returned around 7pm and took it in her presence,” said Police spokesperson Peter Botha.

Chitipa first grade magistrate Julius Kalambo says there is little effort by stakeholders to detect and prevent suicides.

‘‘When one is found hanging, community members hastily conclude that the person committed suicide. There is no further investigation to establish the truth of the matter. Some murders may be misclassified as suicides,” he warns.

Since January, the police have not approached the court to request for an inquest to ascertain whether the five cases were really suicidal or criminal cover-ups.

The inquest provides for the need for independent expert inquiry into the cause of such deaths.

Suicide is a serious health concern not only in Malawi, but globally.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that almost one million people globally kill themselves every year.