Fewer people committed suicide in the provinces of Groningen and Friesland in 2017 than in 2016, but there was an increase in suicides in Drenthe.
Translation by Traci White
The latest numbers were released by the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. In 2017, 86 people committed suicide in Friesland, which is four fewer deaths than in 2016. In Groningen, there were 85 suicides in 2016 and 81 in 2017.
As a proportion of the provincial population, there were more suicides in Drenthe in 2017 than anywhere else in the Netherlands. There were 55 people who committed suicide in the province in 2016, but that number rose to 80 in 2017. The CBS did not offer any explanations for why the numbers in Drenthe were up.
On the national level, there were 23 more suicides in 2017 than in 2016. In total, 1,917 people committed suicide in 2017. CBS says that there has been a slight increase among teenagers.