Camel killed in Kazakhstan to end suicides

Moscow, April 28 (IANS/RIA Novosti) People in a Kazakh town have sacrificed a white camel in a bid to end an adolescent "suicide epidemic" blamed on an evil spirit that comes as a vision to instigate boys to kill themselves.

According to the regional Otyrar TV, around 200 residents of Karabulak town, which has a population of 40,000, attended the sacrifice ceremony.

The white camel was slaughtered on advice from village elders, after two middle school students hung themselves, the report said.

Three more teenagers were recently prevented from committing suicide at the last moment, and dozens more sought help of the clerics of the local mosque, the report said.

In 2011, the toll from suicides in the town stood at 14, most of them adolescent boys.

The surviving boys said they saw a vision of an old man clad in white who told them life is pointless and showed them a rope around his neck, said imam Abdurrafi Rakhmatullayev.

"That was the devil in human guise," he said.

A similar incident took place in Karabulak 60 years ago, but the suicides were ended after an elders advised a white camel sacrifice, said town head Alimzhan Nishankulov.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

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