Recent Nunavut suicide of 11-year-old boy a “tragedy,” GN official says

This map shows the location of the Nunavut community of Repulse Bay, which has a population of about 950. (FILE IMAGE)

With 29 suicides to date in Nunavut for the first seven and a half months of 2013, this year could surpass 2003 with the highest number of suicides in a single year since the territory’s creation in 1999.

That number of 29 suicides since Jan. 1, 2013 was confirmed Aug. 15 to Nunatsiaq News by Monita O’Connor, Nunavut’s assistant deputy of health.

In 2012, 27 people died by suicide in Nunavut. In 2011, 33 Nunavut residents died by suicide, in what was the second-worst year for suicide in the territory’s history.

In 2003, the worst year since 1999, 37 died by suicide.

One of the most recent suicides: that of an 11-year-old boy in Repulse Bay, which O’ Connor called a “tragedy.”

But, saying that, O’Connor cautioned people from putting too much focus on the growing number of suicides in the territory.

“While people want to talk about the numbers, we would like to respond and say just one suicide is a tragedy, and is a cause for a grave concern in itself,” she said.

The reaction to the young boy’s suicide “has affected everyone in Nunavut and beyond,” O’Connor said in a short Aug. 15 interview from Iqaluit, during which she started off by saying that the Government of Nunavut “would like to extend our condolences and deepest sympathies to the family and the community of Repulse Bay.”

The GN has sent in an extra mental health worker to work with the community, she said.

And the GN will work with the education department and school in Repulse Bay where friends and fellow students of the boy are enrolled.

Those young children will be most at risk for attempting suicide, recent research has found.

At the same time, the GN continues to work on developing its action plan to tackle the greater mental health issues, such as addictions, abuse and trauma, within the territory, O’Connor said.

But among the keys to dealing with suicide: to get people talking.

“We’re talking,” O’Connor said.

Asked how she would respond to a recent statement by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. vice-president, Jack Anawak, that the “silence is deafening” from elected officials on the issue of suicide, O’Connor said “it’s hard for me to comment on Jack’s view of things. I’d have to talk to him about what he meant about that statement.”

In Nunavut, the Kamatsiaqtut help line, staffed by volunteers, nightly receives calls from people in Nunavut who are in crisis and need someone to talk to.

The Kamatsiaqtut help line can be reached in Iqaluit at (867) 979-3333 or toll-free at 1(800) 265-3333, from 7 p.m. to midnight.