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OPINION | The unspoken tragedy: Young lives and self-death

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We don't speak about suicide often enough, something that we struggle to understand and confront, writes the author. (Getty Images)
We don't speak about suicide often enough, something that we struggle to understand and confront, writes the author. (Getty Images)

Self-death is an unthinkable but all too real version of death. Leslie van Rooi was recently confronted with the reality of it, when a former Stellenbosch University student died by suicide. He reflects on how we struggle to understand and confront it.

Death always comes as a shock. Even if you expect the inevitable, it still comes like a thief in the night. But the deathliness of death is perhaps even more visible when someone younger passes away. 

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