‘It’s only getting worse’: A rise in teenage suicides haunts Colombia’s indigenous people

The Colombian Amazon state of Vaupés is famous for its pristine rainforest and its vast array of wildlife, but the indigenous communities that inhabit this remote region in the south of the country have also become known for a tragic trend in teenage suicides.

Dalia,18, was bullied and verbally abused by her cousins for years.

“They used to tell me I was ugly and I would never find a husband,” she says. “One day I was so upset, I picked up a knife and I slit my wrists.”

Dalia, whose mother found her bleeding out in her bedroom, is still coming to terms with what happened two years ago. She sits on a swing in Mitú, the region’s capital, her voice croaking incessantly as she struggles to find the words to express her pain.

“I feel ashamed,” she says. “It was just automatic. I don’t think I’d do it again.”

According to the authorities, there was a disturbing 12 per cent rise in suicide among 15 to 19-year-olds in Colombia between 2021 and 2022, with just under 400 cases reported last year. The vast majority of these were among indigenous teenagers from Vaupés.

Neurologist Diego Rosselli, from Javeriana University in Bogotá, has spent his career researching health and suicide among Colombia’s indigenous populations.

“It’s a worrying phenomenon,” he told the Telegraph. “But it’s under-reported and simply often ignored.”

‘I was so unloved’

Vaupés is home to 29 different ethnic populations that live in more than 200 isolated settlements. The geography of the Amazon means children have to leave their families for boarding school to receive their education. The unforgiving landscape makes a daily journey to and from classes impossible. Many youngsters feel lonely and abandoned as a result.

Roberto is one of them. Despite the sweltering humidity, the 17-year-old wears a scarf to conceal the scars from attempting to slit his throat.

“I spent most of my life separated from my family. It’s really hard. You feel so alone and I was so unloved,” he says. “I tried to kill myself twice. When I was 12, I tried to hang myself, but after a few seconds I fell because I was too heavy. Then when I was 16, I slit my throat, but my brother found me and saved my life.”

At 5.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, Colombia has one of the lowest suicide rates on the planet, but in Vaupés it climbs to 28.6, ranking among the top ten highest in the world.

Local authorities are warning that suicide has become a public health crisis.

“More needs to be done because we’ve lost control,” says Dayra Góngora, an indigenous community leader in Mitú.

Alcohol is usually involved in many of cases of suicide in Vaupés, but locals here say the indigenous stiff upper lip is also to blame.

“We don’t talk about our emotions, “says Ms Góngora. “Young people feel they can’t talk to their parents or their friends about their problems. We’re a very closed society.”

The remote rainforest populations of Vaupés are also vulnerable to dissident factions of the FARC guerrilla, who roam the jungle seeking to replenish their ranks after the country’s peace process. Indigenous chiefs say that more than 30 children and adolescents from ethnic minorities across Colombia took their own lives last year to avoid being recruited by armed groups.  

But the rise in teenage suicide in Colombia follows an international trend. Experts say this is a result of the global pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures. 

In the US, the number of teenagers taking their own lives has climbed to the highest it has been for a decade. In Latin America, 16 million teenagers have been diagnosed with mental disorders following the pandemic, with 11 adolescents per day dying by suicide, according to a report cited in the Lancet.

Generally high rates of suicide have been reported among ethnic minorities world-wide, including the Scandinavian Sami in Europe and the First Nations peoples of Australia.

Indigenous teenagers ‘feel like failures’

Despite geographical differences, researchers have concluded that there are some common risk factors for mental disorders and self-injury among the world’s indigenous peoples, most of them associated with what psychiatrists call cultural disruption.

“This is the biggest single risk factor we have identified,” says Dr Rosselli. “It’s about losing or being forced to give up ancestral traditions and native languages.”

Indigenous people account for 3.4 per cent of the Colombian population, distributed in around 80 ethnic groups. They are usually located in marginalised areas with high levels of poverty. Their epidemiologic profile, rates of infant and maternal mortality and life expectancy correspond to the least developed countries in the world.

Government statistics show suicide is a common phenomenon in many of these communities. In some, suicide has been described as a rite of passage towards a better life.

Indigenous teenagers can be particularly vulnerable to cultural disruption. In their settlements, they live off subsistence farming, but at boarding school they encounter material needs for the first time.

“The system prepares them for work, for study, but then there are no jobs, no university places and they end up lost,” says Ms Góngora. “They go back to their communities, but farming no longer satisfies them. They start to want mobile phones or motorbikes. They begin to feel like a failure.”

In Mitú, the local health authority has launched a suicide prevention programme, working with young people, who have attempted to take their own lives.

“For every successful case of suicide here, there are roughly 20 attempts,” says Robinson Rios, the psychologist leading the programme.

Those attending the workshops are between 14 and 18-years-old, though Mr Rios says he has known children as young as six who have taken their own lives.

Using photography, the workshop participants are taught to view their lives through a variety of lenses, intended to provoke deep self-reflection and improve their self-esteem.

“Many indigenous young people face an identity crisis. They’re trying to balance the traditions of their community with the materialism of western culture and this creates an internal conflict: ‘Who am I? Where am I headed? Why don’t I have what others have?’ It’s more than a clash of cultures, it creates low self-efficacy and negative perceptions of their lives and their futures.”

Dalia shows the scars on her arm, a result of years of inflicting self-harm.

“So many young people want to kill themselves here. It’s no secret,” she says. “But why are we incapable of seeking help? The situation is only getting worse.”

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