Dubai: Kuwait has reported at least 30 premeditated murders during the past 14 months, from January 2021 till February 2022, an average of two crimes every month, local media reported.
Despite the high number compared to the population, police efforts led to arrests in the vast majority of the cases and perpetrators were brought to justice.
However, the increase in the rates of these heinous crimes raises several questions, most notably: Why have murders increased? What are the reasons and motives? Where is the preventive security to prevent crime before it occurs?
In the first two weeks of this month, two shocking crimes took place. Last week, two sisters were arrested for brutally beheading their mother. Kuwaiti newspaper Al Anbaa said that, according to preliminary information, one of the girls drugged the mother and the other slit her throat and then put the head in a garbage bag inside the kitchen.
The two girls admitted to having killed their mother after an unspecified row that developed into a quarrel.
On March 5, a man, his wife and their daughter were killed inside their house under mysterious circumstances in Kuwait, prompting a massive manhunt.
The bodies of the three Kuwaitis were discovered by the mother’s brother in their house in the area of Al Ardiya in Al Farwaniya governorate, Al Qabas newspaper said, citing a security source.
Initial inspection showed that the crime was perpetrated four days earlier and the smell of the corpses spread in the place.
A while later, Kuwait Police said they arrested the prime suspect in the killing of three members. The suspect was an Indian national. He was arrested in Sulaibiya following investigations after he was identified using CCTV cameras from nearby homes. Police found KD300 in cash plus gold which the suspect had stolen from the house after committing the murder.
Suicide rates
In recent months, Kuwaiti media has also reported a series of suicide deaths and attempts. Early this month, two Asian expatriates took their lives in Kuwait amid a reported rise in suicide attempts in the country.
A Bangladeshi man had hanged himself to death inside a room he had shared with others in the area of Jleeb Al Shuyoukh in Al Farwaniya, Al Anba said. The incident came hours after an Asian man had committed suicide by hanging himself inside a workers’ residence in the vicinity of the Kuwait airport, which is under construction, the paper said.
Last month, an Indian expatriate committed suicide by hanging himself inside his room in the area of Jleeb Al Shuyoukh.
Forty-one suicide cases and 43 suicide attempts were registered last year in Kuwait, a country of around 4.6 million people, mostly foreigners, according to official figures.
