Three commit suicide in one day in northern Syria amid mounting financial, psychological stress

Three suicide cases were recorded in the past 24 hours across northern Syria as mounting stress takes a toll on civilians in the war-torn country, Syrian media reported on Sunday.

The cases include a married woman with children in the town of Darkush, a young man who threw himself off a building in the city of Azaz, and another young man who shot himself in the town of Abyan, according to Syria TV.

The number of suicide cases in the region is increasing, as 33 attempts have been pursued since the beginning of this year – 26 of which resulted in death and 7 of which did not - the Syrian Response Coordination Group said in a statement on Sunday.

The statistic compares to 24 suicides being recorded during the whole of last year in the region, Muhammad Hallaj, an official from the coordinators group told The New Arab's Arabic language service Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

“The reasons for the increase… are economic, psychological and social [issues, including], unemployment, poverty, increased cases of domestic violence… the spread of drugs and family disintegration due to difficult economic conditions,” the Syrian Response Coordinators stated.

“These conditions call for all parties to address this... establish psychological rehabilitation centres, form special teams to combat the phenomenon of suicide, and launch media campaigns to highlight the dangers of this phenomenon and how to reduce it,” the statement added.

Following the Syrian uprising – which saw President Bashar al-Assad's regime violently crack down on pro-democracy protesters – Syria suffered a devastating economic crisis which threw around 80% of Syrians into poverty.

Since the revolution began, over 500,000 lives have been lost, over five million Syrians have been forced to flee to neighbouring countries and an additional six million Syrian civilians have been internally displaced.