Suicide statistics for South Africa
Age-standardised rate per 100,000 people, 2021, as published by the World Health Organization.
All
21.1
per 100,000 · WHO range 16.3–25.3
Men
32.9
per 100,000 · WHO range 26.1–38.4
Women
9.7
per 100,000 · WHO range 6.9–12.7
The median across all 184 countries WHO publishes is 8.3. South Africa is above that median — which is a fact about death registration and population health, and not a judgement about the country or the people in it.
What this number is not
It is an estimate with a published range, not a count. It depends heavily on how deaths are investigated and recorded in South Africa, which differs between countries far more than most readers expect. And it describes a whole population over a year — it says nothing about any individual, including you.
Help in South Africa
We do not yet have a verified crisis line for South Africa. The page below carries the general emergency number and international options.
Source: World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory, indicator MH_12. Retrieved 4 August 2026.