Suicides at Guantanamo Bay[1]
The detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay has handled 771 individuals for varying amount of time, of whom 629 arrived in 2002 and 40 remain as of September 2020. There have been 9 deaths of prisoners recorded at the detention center, of which 7 have been labelled as suicides. There have however, been questions raised as to whether these deaths were really suicides rather than homicides or deaths resulting from torture at the hands of the staff (Horton, 2010). Some military officials labelled these suicides as acts of war by jihadists seeking martyrdom (Savage, 2011).
Three of these suicides occurred in 2006 (apparently in a suicide pact using hanging), one in 2007, one in 2009, one in 2011, and one in 2012. To calculate a suicide rate, the years 2002 to 2019 were included, and the average population in June and July used. The average population per year for the 18-year period was 266.8, with an average of 0.39 suicides per year, giving a suicide rate of 8.10 per 100,000 per year.
There were many attempted suicides at the prison, mostly by overdosing on medication, but also by hanging and cutting, with more than 120 reported by the end of 2004, as well as many more acts of self-harm.[2] One prisoner was reported as having made 12 serious suicide attempts. There were also hunger strikes by prisoners to protest their treatment (Savage, 2011).
References
Horton,
S. (2010). "The Guantánamo
"Suicides": A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle". Harper's Magazine. Archived from the original on January 18, 2010.
Savage, C. (2011). As acts of war or
despair, suicides rattle a prison. New York Times, April 24, online.
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