A teenager committed suicide in the city of Izeh in Khuzestan Province due to hunger.
Iranian media have reported that an 11-year-old boy in the city of Izeh, located in Khuzestan Province in southern Iran, committed suicide due to "starvation" and died after two days in a coma.
The website "Rokna", which publishes news about the incidents, first reported the news. The website quoted the boy's mother as saying: "The family's food for a week was empty bread, and after the bread was gone, the boy committed suicide."
After a few hours, Rokna deleted the description of the news and announced that the reason for the teenager's suicide has not yet been determined. According to the website, the news about the suicide being caused by hunger and poverty is the work of "hostile media" and quoted "a person close to the family" who wrote that hunger or poverty did not play a role in the teenager's suicide.
Economic pressure in Iran has increased in recent years. Corruption among officials has hindered wealth equality in society.
US officials, including Mike Pompeo, have repeatedly warned in recent months that the Islamic Republic is spending the country's resources on supporting terrorist groups in the region, rather than using them for its own people.
Previously, the director of Khuzestan's emergency medical services told ILNA news agency that suicides in the province have increased in recent months, to the point that "at least five to six suicides occur in the province every week."
Last month, Izeh Prosecutor Morad Shamuli said that the city "ranks first in the province and third in the country in terms of suicides."
This summer, at a conference held to examine the cause of the high suicide rate in the city of Izeh, Mohammad Sadeq Karimikia, deputy director of the Khuzestan provincial government's social affairs department, said that "cultural, unemployment, economic, and social problems" were among the reasons for the high suicide rate in the city.
No official Iranian government officials have yet reacted to this news.
This summer, news was also published that a 12-year-old boy in the city of Abadan committed suicide because his mother had sold his cell phone and bicycle to pay the rent.
Source: Voice of America
