One soldier who committed suicide, Dan Collins, had twice survived being shot in Helmand, and had witnessed a close friend killed in front of him. PHOTO: FILE
LONDON: A total of 50 serving and veteran British soldiers committed suicide last year, more than were killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to figures reported on Sunday.
The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed that seven serving soldiers killed themselves in 2012 and a further 14 died in suspected suicides, although inquests have not yet been held. BBC investigation found that at least 29 veterans also took their lives last year. There are no official figures.
A total of 40 British soldiers died in action in Afghanistan in the same period, while serving as part of a decade-long British deployment that reached 9,500 troops at its peak.
Relatives of those who killed themselves told the BBC the military should do more to tackle post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treat it like a physical injury.
One soldier who committed suicide, Dan Collins, had twice survived being shot in Helmand, and had witnessed a close friend killed in front of him. He was diagnosed with PTSD and given treatment, but after 10 months the army said he had recovered. He was later released back home and on New Year’s Eve 2011, he hanged himself.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “Every suicide is a tragedy and our thoughts remain with the families of all those who have sadly taken their own lives.”
“Mental health of our personnel and veterans is a top priority for the government.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2013.
COMMENTS (7)
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They are two main reasons for these soldiers to commit suicide. Firstly, home sickness since wives or girl friends are not allowed to visit or stay with them in Afghanistan. Secondly and more importantly is the lack of motivation that it is not their war lead them to extreme frustration in ending their lives.
It would be interesting to compare military suicide statistics with non military population - might give a better perspective on problem. Afghan NATO/American combat fatalities are very low and the American death by suicide has exceeded combat fatalities on more than one occasion - not surprising that Brits would have same statistic.
Should not the British army have some way to relieve them/replace them so as to avoid the terrible outcome?
Inhumane!!!
When will anyone publish any reports on how many innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians have committed suicide due to the extreme trauma they have suffered as a direct result of this war? Why are we here shedding tears for the aggressors? As if those 40 soldiers never took the lives of innocent people while they were deployed.
A show how useless was it for the Americans and NATO forces to fight this hopeless war. Pakistan could have done the job of capturing OBL for America but even then America wanted to try out positioning itself in this region for many strategic purposes, including guarding this area against Iran, Russia, and China, not to mention Pakistan. Also, Americans could have negotiated with the Mullah Omer Taliban without invading Afghanistan and some modus vivendi would have assured the flow of Central Asian oil to the West. The American non-elites were used as cannon fodder for a useless war for the American elite interests. I pity the common Americans who lack sufficient knowledge of World Affairs and are exploited by American elites, special interests, and powerful lobbies.
Bravo our Veterans!
Current pharmaceutical drug PTSD treatment for Veterans found ineffective.
Eli Lilly made $70 billion on the Zyprexa franchise.Lilly was fined $1.4 billion for Zyprexa fraud! The atypical antipsychotics (Zyprexa,Risperdal,Seroquel) are like a 'synthetic' Thorazine,only they cost ten times more than the old fashioned typical antipsychotics. These newer generation drugs still pack their list of side effects like diabetes for the user.All these drugs work as so called 'major tranquilizers'.This can be a contradiction with PTSD suffers as we are hyper vigilant and feel uncomfortable with a drug that puts you to sleep and makes you sluggish. That's why drugs like Zyprexa don't work for PTSD survivors like myself. -- Daniel Haszard