Eskasoni in 'crisis' as suicides continue, councillor says

Faced with another suicide, Eskasoni has turned its cultural centre into a crisis outreachoffice in a desperate attempt to stop other young people from killing themselves.

There have been four suicides in the First Nation community in Cape Breton within the past five weeks. Several more young people have died from drug overdoses in the past year.

Community membershave startedanswering phones at the cultural centre to offer help to callers.

"People are not having enough time to deal and grieve for one person, and then it's happening again.So we're doing all we can to try to get the right people in place and resources in place to help the community," said Mike MacInnes,an addictions counsellor.

News of the latest death came Tuesday as the band council met to discuss the crisis.

Band councillor Leroy Denny said the meeting was interrupted by a phone call letting council know that a young man had taken his life.

"Everything went all emotional, but we said, 'No we cannot give up, we have to try to beat this,' " Denny told CBC News.

"Right now, I think we are in a state of crisis in Eskasoni. And we're really concerned. I'm really concerned as a leader, and I think we need help."

Taking its toll

The RCMP confirmed thesuicide Tuesday of a 19-year-old man from Eskasoni.

The rash of suicides is taking its toll on people inthe small community of about 3,000 outside Sydney.

"It doesn't hurt just one person, it hurts all of us," said Samantha Prosper, 16, who has lost friends and relatives.

Prosper and her friends say many youth in the community feel no one cares about them, that often their parents are using illegal prescription drugs. They estimate that half of the people under 30 are drug users.

They want the adults to step up and get the drug dealers out of Eskasoni, though they're not optimistic.

"I think everyone has just about had enough with people losing people over drugs because that's what it's mostly from, so hopefully everyone will just speak up and just stop it," Prosper said.

"It needs to happen," added her friend, Shanna Francis. "But I don't think it will."

Prescription pill abuse

In an earlier interview with CBC News, RCMP Staff Sgt. Dan Morrow said the community generally suffers from a lot of prescription pill abuse and he believes some deaths are related to substance abuse.

TheMounties have charged 17 people with drug trafficking in the past year.

Denny said the band is looking for help from other chiefs, as well as all levels of government.

Some people are wondering why a youth centre completed more than a year ago is still not operational.

Band adviser Jamie Battiste said the community finished a building in 2007 that was supposed to be 24-hour crisis centre for young people in trouble, but there's no money to run it.

"We have a plan," Battiste said. "[The] federal government needs to take a look at it and say that we've got all this new money coming in for infrastructure. Well, the building is built. How about giving us the money to have someone in it to take care of these youth?"

An emergency meeting of all the community's community groups is scheduled for Friday.