In the first six month of 2006, 16 kids have taken their lives in mass suicides, mostly using sleeping pills. For local teachers, schools must teach spiritual values, consumerism is the greatest evil.

Hanoi (AsiaNews) – Alarm bells are being set off in Vietnam as a result of the rising number of mass suicides among young people. Since the beginning of 2006, 16 teenagers, school mates or friends, have killed themselves. The latest case involves five 13-year-old girls from Phuong Hoang in Thanh Ha district (Hai Duong province). After tying their hands with a red string they jumped together into the Huong River.

In Hanoi's Long Bien district, a boy and a girl, both 14, killed themselves by taking sleeping pills because their parents opposed their budding love.

In Co Nhue, also near Hanoi, nine 14-year-old girls took lethal doses of sleeping pills after their parents scolded them for not doing well at school.

Similarly, three 12-year-old teenagers from a high school in Ben Tre died from taking sleeping pills. 

For principal Nguyen of Hanoi's DTH High School, "life today has become very complex and kids are vulnerable. Education is largely theory-oriented, unconcerned with spiritual activities or teaching the country's traditional values. We forget that our love and respect as adults for them is also very important in a child's development."

For Ms Tran, from another Hanoi high school, "in the absence of spiritual education, young people are defenceless against consumerism, which sucks the life out of their existence providing no positive or strong motivations."

• vietnam
• hanoi
• youth
• suicide