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'130,000 suicides in last decade'

By Lee Tae-hoon.

A total of 130,802 Koreans, including former President Roh Moo-hyun, took their own lives between 2000 and 2009, according to figures of a police survey released by a ruling party lawmaker Tuesday.

"Given that the whole population of Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province stood at 72,049 as of the end of 2009, it is like seeing the entire people in a town of a similar size get wiped out every half a decade because of suicide", Rep. Yoo Jae-jung of the governing Grand National Party said.

Korea is ranked as the country with the highest suicide rate among the 33 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with roughly 30 out of every 100,000 people killing themselves in 2009.

Yoo also pointed out that South Chungcheong Province had the highest suicide rate of 49.7 out of every 100,000 followed by Gwangwon Province with 45.7 and North Chungcheong Province with 40.7.

He said the suicide rate in Seoul, the capital city of Korea with a population of some 10 million, was 27.3, slightly lower than the national average.

In Hungary, which has the second highest suicide rate among OECD member nations, 19.6 out of 100,000 people committed suicide in 2008, followed by Japan with 19.4 in the same year, according the OECD Health Data 2010.

"Suicidal impulses are also epidemic and may further spread unless effective measures are taken", Yoo said.

He also noted that suicide prevention, especially among the elderly, teenagers and women, deserves as much of the government's attention as birth promotion.

The suicides of women accounted for 35.5 percent of the total in 2009, up from 28.4 percent in 2000.

Teenagers and people over 60 years old are the most vulnerable age groups, according to a 2008 survey of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs and the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The survey found that 18.5 percent of teenagers had thought of suicide in the past year, roughly 3.5 percent higher than the average for adults and 31.6 percent of people in their 70s had suicidal impulses, followed by those in their 60s with 24.5 percent.

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