Trigger warning: Three suicides shake LGBTI+ community in eastern Congo
In the midst of fatal flooding, homophobia takes deadly toll
NOTICE: For help in dealing with suicidal thoughts, click HERE.
The LGBTI+ community in Bukavu and the South Kivu region of the Congo has experienced a cluster of suicides in addition to the area’s fatal flooding that has been widely reported.
Jérémie Safari, executive director of the LGBTI advocacy group Rainbow Sunrise Mapambazuko (RSM), reports that the latest suicides have followed about a month after the suicide of a transgender man in the Walungu area who had suffered a “corrective rape”.
In an interview, Safari said that on May 5, “young Cléonicio (pseudonym) killed himself by hanging in Kadutu, a township in the Bukavu agglomeration. In a posthumous letter explaining his act, he declared that he had no choice but to end his life. A supporter of RSM, he was mistreated at home, beaten and sometimes deprived of food. His family locked him up at home and deprived him of access to education.”
At this point in the interview, Safari burst into tears. Then he continued:
“Last Saturday, April 29, another suicide took place in Kamituga. It was a lesbian woman who took her own life after being raped and being refused medical care in the local hospital. Her sexual orientation was the cause of this refusal. The victim could not bear it and she took her own life.
“We don’t have a hotline, but this accumulation of dramas and tragedies that follow one another more and more, leads us to make suicide prevention a priority for action and urgency for our organization, in coordination with a psychologist, with whom we are used to working.”
Erasing 76 Crimes: “Is there any news about the young Eustache (pseudonym) who had numerous injuries to his face following a machete attack?”
Jérémie Safari: “He is due to be released from the hospital soon. He is not disabled, but his mental health will have to be taken care of for many years to come.
A few minutes after the interview ended, Safari informed Erasing 76 Crimes that Cleonicio’s family refused to take his body from the morgue. Therefore, Rainbow Sunrise Mapambazuko will arrange for the burial and purchase a coffin for Cleonicio before he goes to his final resting place.
You can write to Jérémie Safari by clicking on this link.
Suicide prevention lines
If you are in the United States and are having suicidal thoughts, suffering from anxiety or depression, or just want to talk, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386.
In the United Kingdom, the Samaritans suicide hotline is at +44 (0) 8457 90 90 90.
In Nigeria, LGBTQ people are invited to download the mobile Qtalk discussion/counseling app, where they can chat with a counsellor for free. (To download it, click HERE.)
Wikipedia also lists many countries’ suicide crisis lines, mixed in with general emergency numbers.
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