© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

US Senate Hearing On Tribal Suicide

By KRWG News

New Mexico – At 15, high school sophomore Coloradas Mangas knows all too much about suicide.

He's recently had several friends who took their own lives.

Coloradas, a member of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, lives on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, where have been five youth suicides since the start of the school year. All were his friends.

Coloradas is a survivor of a suicide attempt himself. He went to Capitol Hill Thursday to tell lawmakers about the urgent problem of suicide among Native Americans. Tribal suicide rates are 70 percent higher than for the general population, and the youth suicide rate is even higher.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.