*Content warning: this blog post contains discussions and descriptions of attempted suicides. Please read at your own discretion. 

When Beatrice Modi Kideng bought poison from a local market in 2024, she had made up her mind. Life, as she knew it, had become unbearable, and she was going to end it. 

Back in South Sudan, Beatrice lived a modest but stable life. She worked as a tailor, while her husband earned a living as a boda boda rider. But that life was shattered in 2016 when civil war broke out. “People were being killed,” she recalls. “We had to run for our lives.” 

She fled with her family to Uganda, eventually settling in Palorinya refugee settlement in the north of the country. But exile brought its own struggles. 

Now 32, Beatrice is the sole breadwinner in her home. Her husband, absent and unsupportive, took her sewing machine, the one tool she had to earn a living, back to South Sudan to give to his relatives. “That was my only source of income,” she says. “I was left to do all the domestic work, provide for the home, and even pay the school fees.” 

The burden became too much. Faced with poverty, emotional neglect, and gender-based violence, she reached a breaking point.  

Beatrice’s story highlights a disturbing trend arising in Uganda’s refugee camps—more and more refugees are dying by suicide. 

In honor of Mental Health Awareness month, we want to call attention to this growing epidemic and highlight the incredible work being done by our Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MPHSS) staff and partners to give refugees the resources and treatment they desperately need and deserve.  

A Disturbing Trend

Beatrice’s story reflects a grim reality for many refugees in Uganda. According to the UN Refugee Agency’s Uganda Suicide Dashboard, 190 suicide attempts were recorded in 2024, with 59 deaths and 18 repeat attempts, most of them women. The main causes cited were family conflict, financial hardship, unmet basic needs, and domestic violence, the very issues that nearly ended Beatrice’s life. 

“Many people here are silently suffering,” says Yasinta Kyalisiima, a psychiatric clinical officer with TPO Uganda, a mental health and psychosocial support organization working in partnership with Medical Teams International in Palorinya. “They carry heavy responsibilities, especially women. When their partners are violent, absent, or uninvolved, it becomes too much.” 

High levels of stress and anxiety are common worldwide among refugees and internally displaced people, given so many of their needs are unmet and the level of trauma they experience.

With more than 120 million people forcibly displaced around the world, the associated mental health crisis among this population is enormous and growing. To adequately meet their needs and provide care, mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) are critical aspects of the healing journey.   

The increase in suicide rates is, unfortunately, not only being reported in adults. Children are falling victim to the stressors of crisis, displacement, and hopelessness as well.  

Clementine suffered the unimaginable when her husband was killed as they fled conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Clementine and her daughter, Geteme, settled in Uganda as refugees. Without income, Clementine could no longer afford school fees for her daughter. In deep grief and despair, Geteme tried to end her own life. 

Through community networks, Clementine was connected to Medical Teams International, who referred Geteme to TPO Uganda for urgent counseling. Medical Teams also linked Clementine and her daughter to partners who provided educational support. Slowly, Geteme began to heal—but others are not so lucky. 

Barriers to Receiving Care: What’s Standing in the Way of Healing? 

When refugees are suffering with mental health conditions, there are a number of factors that can stand in between them and the care they desperately need.  

1. Limited knowledge and awareness of mental health. Many people are not aware that mental health conditions are indeed medical in nature and therefore require medical treatment in order to improve. People who suffer with untreated mental health conditions often are not able to perform regular tasks like finding and keeping a stable job, maintaining relationships, or functioning as a member of a social group. Due to a lack of knowledge about mental health, these behaviors are often seen as an individual’s moral failing rather than a condition that needs treatment.
2. Poor access to mental health services and medications. One NGO reported that some patients were traveling up to 85 kilometers (53 miles) to receive treatment, and when they get to the clinic, the mental health medications they need aren’t even in stock. 
3. Cultural beliefs and stigma. In many countries (the US included), mental health conditions are often seen as a curse, a spiritual attack, or divine punishment for wrongdoing. This leads to discrimination and social isolation of people suffering with mental health conditions. Families often abandon their loved ones to avoid community shame by association. 

Psychiatric clinical officer Yasinta Kyalisiima sees this stigma all too often in the population she serves, often with disastrous outcomes. “People come to us only after they’ve lost all support,” she says. “They feel hopeless and isolated. And many delay treatment because they believe it’s witchcraft.” 

42-year-old Grace Kiden suffers from a delusional disorder that was relatively well-managed in her home of South Sudan, but a forced relocation to Uganda disrupted her mental stability and access to needed medications.

Left untreated, Grace’s illness grew into paranoia and social withdrawal. “I believed that my brother’s wife was bewitching me” she says. “I constructed a thorn fence around my house to keep people out” she adds. 

Thankfully, she was connected to Medical Teams and TPO and received much-needed counseling and medication support which greatly improved her symptoms and restored her hope, dignity, and ability to function.  

Hope on the Horizon 

Medical Teams International is committed to providing and facilitating compassionate mental health services as a crucial component of essential, life-saving medical care. Mental health services can include individual and group counseling, medication management, referrals to hospitals or other providers, and on-going community support and follow-up. 

Last month, Medical Teams communications staff member, Leah Kabi Alikobakwoyo, visited Palorinya and Rwamwanja refugee settlements, where there have been high numbers of suicide incidents in recent years. Interviews with several people who experienced severe mental health issues found that refugees emerge stronger when provided with access to mental health services through support from international and local partner organizations serving adults and children in the settlements. 

“Medical Teams is committed to caring for the whole person, and we believe that long-term healing and peace of mind for refugees and internally displaced people comes from this approach,” said Robert Businge, Medical Teams BPRM Project Coordinator in Uganda. “Partnerships are vital to the effectiveness of this work, especially with recent foreign aid cuts and budget constraints, and we will continue to prioritize our mental health services as part of our life-saving response.” 

Our teams hope that when refugees see others who have been saved from the brink of suicide by receiving mental health support, they too will realize that they have a life-saving option available to alleviate their suffering.  

A Reason to Live 

As Beatrice prepared to take her own life with poison, she was discovered and stopped by her children. In a sudden moment of clarity, she realized that she was their only parent, and they needed her. In a miraculous feat of emotional strength, she chose her children. She chose life. 

Beatrice was referred to Problem Management Plus (PM+), a low-intensity counselling program implemented in the settlement by TPO and Medical Teams. Through weekly sessions, she learned how to manage stress and identify coping mechanisms. More importantly, she learned that her pain had a name, and that healing was possible. 

“I had constant headaches. I couldn’t sleep. I used to stay alone,” she says. “But through counselling, I learned how to speak. I’m not ashamed anymore.” 

Today, Beatrice is slowly rebuilding her life. She has returned to farming, growing food on a small plot near her home. She still struggles, but the difference is that now she doesn’t face those struggles alone. 

“If I hadn’t received this counselling, I wouldn’t be here,” she says. “I wouldn’t be alive to raise my children.” 

Mental health support in refugee settings remains chronically underfunded. Uganda hosts over 1.9 million refugees, yet mental health services receive a fraction of the resources they need. Medical Teams will continue the life-saving work of providing mental health care to refugees not only in Uganda, but in all the countries where we serve. If you want to help support these programs and save more lives, you can make a gift HERE.  

Grateful for the care she received, Beatrice has one message to pass on to anyone else who may be suffering like she did: “There’s much more to life… suicide is not the solution.”