Covid-19 increases suicide rates among expats in Kuwait

Agencies
June 28, 2020

Kuwait, Jun 28: Measures imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in Kuwait are believed to have increased suicide cases in the country, according to a media report.

Forty suicide cases and 15 failed attempts, mainly among Asian expatriates, have been recorded in Kuwait since late February, Gulf News quoted the Al Qabas newspaper report, citing sources as saying on Saturday.

Investigations into the majority of cases have revealed that those who committed suicide had experienced psychological and economic troubles due to dire financial circumstances after their employers stopped to pay them as a result of economic fallout from the coronavirus-related measures.

In one case, an expat livestreamed his suicide while chatting with his fiancee on a social networking platform, the newspaper report said.

Suicide cases have increased by around 40 per cent since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, according to the sources.

Some 70 to 80 suicide cases are recorded annually in Kuwait. Last year, they reached 80 suicides against 77 in 2018.

"Suicide cases have started to go up in Kuwait during the coronavirus pandemic due to fear, anxiety, isolation and instability experienced by people and absence of daily aims that could help the person to spend time regularly as before," the newspaper quoted social psychology consultant Samira Al Dosari as saying.

Uncertainty for some expatriates, whose countries have refused to take them in, is another motive for attempting suicide, according to Jamil Al Muri, a sociology professor at the Kuwait University.

"This is in addition to greed of the iqamat traders, who have brought into the country workers in names of phantom companies and abandoned them on the streets," he added.

Starting from Tuesday, Kuwait will embark on the second phase of a stepwise plan to bring life to normal, Gulf News reportd.

According to Phase 2, a nationwide night-time curfew will be reduced by one hour to run daily from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. for three weeks.

Kuwait has so far reported 44,391 COVID-19 cases, with 344 deaths.

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Angry indian
 - 
Tuesday, 30 Jun 2020

YA ALLah save all dispressed people in the earth..

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News Network
March 7,2024

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A missile fired by Yemen's Houthi fighters hit a bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, with the crew reporting three people dead and at least four wounded, the US military said.

In protest against Israel’s inhuman Gaza onslaught, the Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting Israel-bound merchant vessels transiting the vital Red Sea trade route for months and have previously hit ships in the area, but the deaths on Wednesday appear to be the first fatalities resulting from such an attack.

An anti-ship ballistic missile struck the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned M/V True Confidence, after which its crew reported "three fatalities, at least four injuries, of which three are in critical condition, and significant damage to the ship", the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.

"The crew abandoned the ship and coalition warships responded and are assessing the situation", the military command said, noting that the attack was the fifth time the Houthis had launched an anti-ship ballistic missile in two days.

"These reckless attacks by the Houthis have disrupted global trade and taken the lives of international seafarers", CENTCOM added.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on social media that the True Confidence was targeted with multiple missiles "after the ship's crew rejected warning messages" from the Houthis.

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News Network
March 12,2024

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Congratulating the Muslim world on the occasion of Ramadan, Iran calls on Muslim countries to unite against the Israeli regime's ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip on the occasion of the arrival of the holy fasting month.

"I cordially congratulate the honorable Iranian nation, the entire Muslims of the world, and my counterparts in Muslim countries on the occasion of the emergence of the blessed month of Ramadan," Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

"Gaza's developments showed that, as the common ideal of all Muslims, the issue of Palestine rests at the top of the Muslim world's [list of] priorities," he added.

The holy month, he added, can serve as a "premium opportunity" for Muslim countries "to effectively take the initiative, under the aegis of all-out unity and convergence, towards stopping the apartheid Zionist regime's genocide and war crimes in Gaza."

Amir-Abdollahian, meanwhile, expressed confidence that "the resistance and the Palestinian people are the main victors of this arena."

Israel launched the war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.

Concomitantly with the war, the regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on Gaza, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle. Earlier this month, the United Nations warned that in the absence of any changes in the regime’s ongoing genocidal war, the coastal sliver was on course to experience all-out famine.

So far during the military onslaught, the regime has killed more than 31,112 Gazans, most of them women, children, and adolescents.

Also on Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Israeli regime to honor the spirit of the holy month by "silencing the guns."

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News Network
March 10,2024

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At least five people have been killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon, according to first responders and local media, amid exchanges of near-daily fire between the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement and Israel since the latter launched its assault on Gaza.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that a family of four, including a father, his pregnant wife and their two sons, and another individual, were killed in the Israeli strike on a house in the al-Ain neighborhood of Khirbet Selm village in southern Lebanon early on Sunday.

Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, were quoted as saying that Israeli fighter jets launched two air-to-surface missiles at the residential building, reducing it to rubble.

Ambulance crew and relief teams recovered the bodies from under the debris and transported them to the Tibnin Governmental Hospital morgue.

The Israeli air raid also resulted in the injury of nine other people and caused serious damage to several surrounding houses.

Israel has been striking Lebanon since the beginning of the regime’s hostilities in the besieged Gaza Strip on October 7.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has prompted retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah in support of the Palestinians in the blockaded area. The Lebanese movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory operations as long as the regime continues its onslaught on Gaza.

Hezbollah fighters have recently targeted Israeli troops near the border with southern Lebanon and rained down rockets on Israeli military sites, including those in Ruwaisat al-Qarn, Zibdin, and Jabal Nader regions.

Also on Saturday, Israeli warplanes bombed a house in the southern Lebanese town of Majdal Zoun, destroying it. An Israeli drone fired a missile at an empty house in the border town of Blida as well.

In mid-February, an Israeli strike knocked down part of a building in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, killing seven members of the same family, including a child. A boy initially reported missing was found alive under the rubble.

In a separate Israeli attack, a woman and her two children were killed in the village of as-Sawana in southern Lebanon.

The occupying regime has also killed close to 31,000 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, most of them women and children.

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