Could there be a link between genocide and suicide?

Abstract

Genocide and suicide are connected in some contexts. Sometimes the connection is direct; occasionally it is indirect.

This relationship hardly figures in suicide studies. Only a handful of case studies are to hand – and they tell us little. We can start with Namibia (1904 to 1906), then the Armenian genocide (1915 to 1923), move to the Holocaust (1933 to 1945), and then to Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s.

We know very little about suicide and suicide attempts during modern genocides. But we do know there is an aftermath of suicide among victims. Show more