When the bell rang, William let out a cry drowned out by the crowd: that night, the Greenlandic teen was boxing for his mother, who killed herself two years ago.<\/p>\n
Suicide is one of Greenland’s leading causes of premature death and the autonomous Danish territory has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.<\/p>\n
An “epidemic”, some Greenlanders call it, striking above all teenagers and young adults.<\/p>\n
“Come on, crush him!” the crowd shouted, the smell of sweat heavy beneath the Arctic island’s flag hanging above the ring.<\/p>\n
William, 15, ducked the blows of his Danish opponent before he was hit with a straight punch and collapsed in the arms of the referee.<\/p>\n
“I was devastated,” he told AFP a few days later from his home in the capital Nuuk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The morning of the match, I woke up crying, thinking of her. I promised her I would win,” he said.<\/p>\n
William’s gaze occasionally drifted to a photograph of his smiling mother, Mette, hung on the wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The former Danish colony faces numerous social challenges, including drug and alcohol addiction and social inequality.<\/p>\n
When Denmark launched a major urbanisation drive in the 1970s, hundreds of the island’s indigenous Inuit families were moved from their villages and pressed into apartment blocks in larger towns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inuit culture is deeply rooted in the land and tight-knit community life, so leaving behind traditional hunting and fishing livelihoods triggered a sense of dislocation and loss of identity, experts say.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to medical journal The Lancet, the displacement left deep trauma and sent suicide rates soaring in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Young Greenlanders still feel the effects of traumas experienced by previous generations, a concept known as intergenerational transmission, another study in the International Journal of Circumpolar Health showed.<\/p>\n
And access to mental health support remains limited.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– ‘Relief’ –<\/p>\n
After his mother’s suicide, William turned first to alcohol and drugs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His brother Kian, now 19, chose a different form of adrenaline: he pulled on boxing gloves “to clear my head”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the pair, boxing became an escape, where they could meet “positive people”.<\/p>\n
It was also a way to honour their mother, a former Greenland martial arts champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Originally from northern Greenland, Mette had been placed in an orphanage in the capital Nuuk as her parents were unable to care for her.<\/p>\n
A pile of her gold medals lay jumbled on the coffee table.<\/p>\n
“When we were younger, we used to use her medals as trophies. We lost a couple of them,” said William. “I feel like I owe her medals.”<\/p>\n
In 2023, suicide accounted for 7.4 percent of deaths in Greenland, according to the same study in The Lancet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We all know at least one or two family members or friends who have killed themselves,” said Kian. “Or many more.”<\/p>\n
“Not so long ago, two of my friends committed suicide,” added William.<\/p>\n
At a gym in Nuuk, a group of youths grunted through push-ups ordered by their coach, 27-year-old former boxer Philippe Andersen.<\/p>\n
“Discipline is key,” he told AFP. “A couple of months before the fight, no drinking, no smoking, nothing. Nothing fun.”<\/p>\n
Some may have been bullied, lost loved ones or face social problems “but we try not to think about it while we’re boxing”.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“They often have something they’re angry about,” he said, adding boxing offered them “relief from their daily lives”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When night falls and the gym empties, Nuuk’s streets fill with teenagers. Along the coast, it’s not unusual to see a lone teenager staring at the sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Behind them, rows of Soviet-style apartment blocks tower over the cliff, remnants of Denmark’s urbanisation drive in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
On the crumbling facade of Block T, a light installation paid tribute to the victims of suicide.<\/p>\n
– Limited help –<\/p>\n
Despite a pressing need for psychological support, isolation in small settlements, coupled with a shortage of Kalaallisut-speaking staff, severely limits access to care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most consultations take place online.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But in recent years authorities have strengthened helplines and begun decentralising the training of mental health professionals to improve access to care.<\/p>\n
Originally from Qaqortoq in the island’s south, the brothers’ family moved to the capital 10 years ago in search of a better life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This summer, William will leave for Denmark to continue his studies, far from his friends and older brother.<\/p>\n
“It’s very hard,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spurred by his coaches, Kian said he hoped to join him and try out for Denmark’s national boxing team — a way for him “to move on”.<\/p>\n
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