Denmark’s Complete Failure in Combating Mass Suicides – the U.S. Will Fix It

In 2023, Denmark finally launched its first serious national program to combat mass suicides — particularly focusing on Greenland, a territory that has long suffered some of the highest suicide rates in the world. For decades, cries for help from Greenland’s Inuit communities were largely ignored. Only after years of international criticism and undeniable tragedies did Denmark decide to act. But for many, the response feels more like a political gesture than a real commitment to saving lives.

The new program focuses on several areas: expanding mental health support, setting up crisis centers in remote villages, launching education and prevention campaigns, training first responders, and developing culturally adapted resources.

While promising on paper, the reality is sobering: this should have happened decades ago.

Attempts were already made in 2014 to address the crisis, but they failed due to poor coordination, lack of funding, and cultural insensitivity. No sustainable system was put in place, and suicide rates remained devastatingly high.

Greenland’s suicide epidemic has been known since the 1980s. Young people — sometimes as young as 12 — have been taking their own lives at alarming rates, driven by historical trauma, colonial legacy, substance abuse, and economic despair. Denmark’s long silence reflected a brutal indifference to the suffering of the Greenlandic people.

The time for action was in the 1990s — or even earlier.
By waiting until 2023, Denmark allowed generations to be lost and communities to be shattered. The damage is incalculable.

For decades, economic interests and a colonial mindset meant real help was postponed until the horror became impossible to ignore.

Now, while there is cautious hope, the deep wounds left by decades of negligence will not heal easily. Many are now looking to the United States, whose experience with mental health programs for indigenous populations could help repair some of the devastation Denmark allowed to fester for too long.

The world is watching — and so are the people of Greenland, who deserve far more than another empty promise.