And Private Miguel's suicide isn't the only one that the BDF has seen recently. 33-year-old Captain Damacio Coc also took his own life 10 days ago. Captain Coc was on remand for a month after he had breached a protection order that his wife had taken out against him. And it was alone in his cell that he took his own life.
And while at first the BDF were hesitant to make any judgements as to how he died, today the commander told us that the post mortem confirmed that it was indeed suicide.
Brigadier General Azariel Loria, Commander, BDF
"The mother arrived last week Friday, the office of the adjutant and the acting chief of staff are in constant communication with them, they are the next of kin, that is what Captain Coc desired, he changed the next of kin to his mom, from wife to his mom so we have communicating to them in regard to the funeral services that will be this Saturday in Sandhill. But we are communicating with them and so far we have also gotten the post mortem report from the Forensic Department and at this time the Forensic Department is saying that it was a suicide, he died by asphyxia."
"We did not know that he was having mental health concerns, we thought that everything was okay. We offered counseling because we knew that he was having domestic dispute for quite a while now but he somewhat denied our assistance, he said that he was okay. What we are doing here in the BDF to counteract that, this is something new, I think two years ago a private soldier committed suicide down in the south and to which our response was at the time to hire a counselor and that was it, so two years later, we are back in this, we don't even have a budget, in this upcoming financial year we're going to request a budget to be provided to our first mental wellness center, first wellness center, it is called now."
As Loria said, Captain Coc's funeral will be held on Saturday.
