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Inside The Suicide Epidemic At The Top Of The World

Ice-bound fishing boats in the harbor at Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland. Only about 50 people live in what was once a great hunting community.
Rebecca Hersher/NPR
Ice-bound fishing boats in the harbor at Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland. Only about 50 people live in what was once a great hunting community.

This story is part of NPR's podcast Embedded, which digs deep into the stories behind the news.

In the Arctic, people are killing themselves. These are young people — people with years and years ahead of them. They're dead by suicide before their 25th birthdays.

To find out why, reporter Rebecca Hersher went to Greenland for three months in the winter, and she found these suicides are happening for a lot of reasons.

The majority of people in Greenland are Inuit, but Greenland is under the control of Demark. Over the last half century, Inuit language and religion have been disappearing. People feel more and more isolated.

Rebecca got to know some people in a tiny town on the edge of a massive ice sheet that covers most of Greenland — and that's when the trouble started. One day the story she was reporting on crashed into her life.

To hear more of this story, listen to Embedded. Keep up with podcast host Kelly McEvers on Twitter at @kellymcevers and reporter Rebecca Hersher at @rhersher, and join the conversation using the hashtag #NPREmbedded.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR Staff