Yes, heartbreak destabilises sufferers both emotionally and psychologically but it is equally heartbreaking to see or hear of young and promising people truncating their precious lives to ease the pain of not marrying who they hoped to.
A 17-year-old beautiful girl is the latest to have disfigured her body beyond recognition because her lover could not afford to pay her dowry.
Reports say the lady identified as Aisha from Albarkawa area in Gusau metropolis in the Zamfara state of Nigeria set herself alight on Sunday, August 8, after her lover said the N17,000 dowry her parents were demanding was too much for him to bear, Gistreel.com reported.
Aisha and Umar have been dating for some time until her parents’ ‘expensive’ dowry scared the young man away.
“She brought a gallon of petrol and a matchbox. She got her self drenched in the petrol and struck a match stick and within a second she got engulfed in flames,” Aisha’s neighbour is quoted as saying in an interview with Daily Trust.
“Even before setting her self ablaze, her younger sister had tried hard to stop her from taking the dangerous decision by flinging the matchbox from her hand as any time she attempted to strike the matches the younger sister would stop her until when she became tired of stopping and went away.
“The girl then ran outside the house screaming for help until some good Samaritans arrived and put out the raging flames tormenting her.
The girl’s father said he had no money to take her to the hospital as he could only boast of N750 at the time the incident happened.”
Since her parents are not financially sound to take her to the hospital for professional treatment, Aisha was reportedly kept at home where Orthodox and other traditional medicines were being administered to her.
This latest incident comes at the time the World Health Organization has said that every 40 seconds one person dies from suicide globally.
The report was released on Monday as part of activities to mark the World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10.