Suicide Rates Surge in Morocco’s Blue City, Chefchaouen Sees Alarming Increase

In total, 1,104 people committed suicide in 2016 (or 2.9 per 100,000 inhabitants), including 613 women and 400 men, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO). In Chefchaouen, nicknamed the Blue Pearl, more than 20 people committed suicide in 2019, reports Hespress.

According to Dr. Jaouad Mabrouki, an expert in psychoanalysis, several reasons explain this rise in the suicide rate in Chefchaouen. According to him, the mountain has a direct link with this growing number of suicides observed in this city over the past two years. He describes this link as a "neuronal biological stress".

To support his argument, the psychoanalyst shared some of the findings of an American study published in January 2011. "Life in the mountains promotes suicide with a higher rate compared to the city. The lack of oxygen at high altitudes in depressed or predisposed people to depression, causes hypoxia (relative) which would cause neuronal stress, then decreasing the capacity to resist suicidal impulses," the study report states.

Lack of leisure, entertainment, cultural and artistic facilities, influence of social networks and access to information and discovery of different ways of life across the country and the world, lack of medical-psychological centers, dependence on cannabis... are all factors that push the inhabitants of Chefchaouen to suicide, according to Dr. Jaouad Mabrouki.