In the figures collected by the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence in Mérida (OVV Mérida) during the last three years, it can be observed that sadly the numbers of cases of deaths by suicide are surpassing those of homicide.
According to the monitoring of the regional media, during the period observed, the OVV Mérida recorded 106 homicides, that is, an average of 35.3 per year. In the case of deaths by suicide, 118 cases were reported, with an average of 39.3 per year.
Specifically, in 2021 for every 10 reported homicides that occurred in Mérida, there were 18 deaths by suicide, while in 2022, for every 10 homicides, 31 suicides were reported.
The observed trend during in the last three years continues to be maintained during the first quarter of 2023: deaths by suicide exceed homicides in a ratio of 14 to 5.
Regarding the annual temporal behavior of each of these causes of death, we have that in 2020 39 cases of homicides were made known by the media, in 2021 that number rose a little (to 44) but fell noticeably in 2022 to 23. This shows – as the OVV has already reported – a downward trend in recent years, a trend that has been taking shape since 2018.
The opposite happened in deaths by suicide: in 2020, the central year of the pandemic, only 18 cases were reported, while in 2021 that number rose significantly to 45 and in 2022 to 55 deaths. This represents a clear growing trend in the report of this type of event in the media.
Open interpretations
Establishing that deaths by suicide could be surpassing homicides in quantity can be a disturbing statement in a country where, precisely, the most radical of the forms of interpersonal violence -that is, homicides – has been the undesirable social reality reference in Venezuela. For the OVV Mérida team, the explanations for this result are varied.
To begin with, the apparent drop in homicides may be due to the particular combination of a series of factors that have been exposed by the OVV on other occasions. In summary, it has been indicated, always conjecturally, that the notorious migration abroad stands out as a factor that has promoted the reduction of both suspected criminals and possible victims.
Likewise, the increase in deaths due to police intervention, at least until 2020, raises the scenario that possible perpetrators have died in confrontations with public force officials in various acts of resistance to authority. Other possible contributing factors are: the sustained decrease in the use of firearms to commit crimes; the disappearance of criminal gangs for different reasons (for example: dismantling of part of State security forces); and the increase in the records of “deaths under investigation” that generates underreporting of murder cases, all of which may have had an impact on the decrease in homicides.
In the particular issue of deaths by suicide, the singularity Mérida State in this matter, which has been studied by the OVV Mérida from 2017 to the present, and which results have been reviewed in various publications, combined in part with the the “complex humanitarian emergency” suffered by this Andean state, as well as the entire country, could explain the sustained significant number of suicide cases that continue to occur on throughout this state.