Woman Suffering From Depression Sets Herself On Fire Following Divorce, Dies

A woman suffering from depression died after she set herself on fire due to family issues in Bangkok on Wednesday.

The 32-year-old unnamed woman, a divorcee and a mother of a four-year-old boy, was stressed out due to family and financial issues. People close to the woman said she was a cheerful person until her divorce last year. She stopped speaking to people and often went to her grandmother’s place to stay away from everyone.

The woman arrived at her grandmother’s home in the wee hours of Tuesday. The grandmother went out to finish some work and when she returned, she saw a container of petroleum in the home. She then went to the backyard and found the woman lying motionless on the ground, blackened by the fire.

The neighbors called police and emergency personnel who arrived at the scene and rushed the woman to a nearby hospital with 60 percent of her body badly burnt. The woman succumbed to injuries the following day.

Neighbors said the woman sold clothes and had her own shop. She, however, was suffering from serious depression and had attempted to kill herself several times in the past.

“She had everything in her life, but the divorce left a hole in her,” a neighbor said.

The woman’s mother said apart from family issues, the woman also had financial issues and had been borrowing money from friends. The investigation into the case was ongoing.

The incident comes less than a month after a depressed woman killed herself and poisoned her two children following her husband’s death in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Police said the woman was depressed after her husband killed himself by hanging earlier this year. She gave some poison-laced food to her two minor daughters before consuming the rest of the food. While the woman and one of the girls died, the other daughter was critical.