hankyoreh

36㎡ apartments

By Im In-tack, staff reporter

the size of most units in a complex that has seen a large number of suicides. Most tenants are elderly people living alone in poverty and loneliness. (by Lee Jung-woo

A total of six residents of an apartment complex in the north of Seoul have committed suicide during a period of 100 days from May to 14 of this month. They included three people older than 60 and three under 30. All of them were living off minimum government support or pension in government subsidized housing, and were either families with disability or elderly people living alone. The tragic deaths attest to the limits of the social safety net for the needy and underprivileged in Korean society.

At the break of dawn on August 3 the ground of the backyard of one of the apartments became tainted with blood. At 5:20am Lee Do-hee, 94, jumped off the balcony of his 13th floor apartment. In the small apartment her son and daughter-in-law, both physically disabled, and their son were still asleep. Four days later, Cha Bae-sook, 98, Lee’s close friend from down the hall threw herself from her apartment on the 6th floor. She had just finished clearing the dinner table for her aging son. The railing of the corridor was too high for her and she had to step on a baby carriage parked in front of the neighbor’s door in order to jump off.

A week later, in the evening of August 14, Lee Joon-ho, 21, living in another apartment in the complex jumped from his apartment on the 13th floor. The young man was working as a public service personnel by day and delivering pizza by night. A neighbor said, “He was working hard to sustain the family but there was an accident while he was delivering and he could not handle the debt that would fall on him.”

On May 15, which is National Family Day, Sohn Han-soo, 63, hanged himself inside his house. He left the door of the entrance open, as if waiting for someone to find him. A neighbor did. Sohn who had separated from his family ten years ago had been calling his family often recently saying that he was “too lonely” and wanted to die. He had tied his whole body, including his legs, tight to ensure that he would die.

On May 1, the police had to force open the door of the bathroom in another apartment. Inside it Kim Soo-yun, 35, laid with a coal briquette burned to ashes; she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. She left a note, “please have my body cremated and have my ashes thrown into the sea.” Earlier that day, Soo-yun left a text message for her older sister and smashed her cell phone. “I‘m sorry. I am going to Mom and Dad,” were her words. She also left a one-page will and had been planning to marry her boyfriend in November. Her sister explained, “She was so deep in debt, 100 million won (about US$90 thousand). She did spend a lot but the interest had snowballed and she recently had resorted to using private loans with monstrous interest.”

On July 20, Kim Jong-seok, a physically disabled 22-year-old, also jumped off the building. He lived with his father, who days before had been arrested for disorderly conduct for being too drunk to control himself. The last record of Jong-seok is his image in the security camera “nervously pacing the corridor of the 15th floor,” sobbed his older brother, 31, who lived in a separate residence.

staff photographer)

In this complex where the deaths took place in such a short period of time, there are a total of 4250 residents who live among 1780 households. It is perhaps the first time that so many people have committed suicide in such a short period in one complex.

It is believed that the pressure of the economic difficulties that have continued during the last 3 to 4 years and the hopelessness that the underprivileged have to endure have led to these tragedies. The ratio is 141 per 1000 people per year as compared to the national figure, which is an average of 0.31 deaths per 1000 people. The number of suicides in Seoul per year is 0.26 per 1000 people; the number in this complex is 4.5 to 5.4 that. The average number of suicides in OECD countries is 0.11; the number in the complex is 12.8 times that.

The suicide rate, which had gone down in 2006, climbed 13.3% points in 2007 and in 2008 went up 5.6% points. With the economic downturn, the rate jumped 20% in 2009. According to police data, between 2009 and 2010 there were 29,501 suicide cases nationwide. Reason behind the deaths included psychological despair 28.8% (8,489 cases), physical pain 22.6% (6,672), economic difficulties 15.9% (4,690), and family problems 11.4% (3,363)

All the cases desperately needed love and care and attention from neighbors and institutes. However, none of the six who found no choice but to take their lives were able to receive support from the local governments or councils or welfare centers. None of them were in the list of those that should receive special assistance or care from the Social Welfare Center of the Seoul City government. This complex was called “a beggars’ joint,” resided in by those that had no money, no health and no community. They were abandoned.

A resident of the complex left a message in the Seoul City website: “Dear Mayor and staff of the Seoul City government. Please do something about the suicides in our neighborhood. Help those who are going through hardships so that they will not give up their dignity and life. Help us, please.”

In accordance with the Suicide Prevention Law that was enacted on August 3, the Seoul City and the Ministry of Health and Welfare will put forward their plans to prevent suicides. However, these will be of no help for the six who already decided to leave this world. They were too late.

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