© Jackson Fager
Donka and Georgi Kostov in the burn-victim unit of St. George hospital in Plovdiv, two weeks after Georgi’s suicide attempt.
It's not every day that you meet someone who has set himself on fire. One reason for this is because it's pretty much the most awful and insane thing imaginable. Another reason is that people who light themselves ablaze usually die soon afterward. Surprisingly, it's not always the burns that kill them. Often, flames will enter a self-immolator's lungs through his mouth, causing him to asphyxiate.
On a recent trip to Bulgaria, I met not one but two people who had survived suicide attempts by fire. "Solving problems with gasoline has become the new trend," Georgi Kostov told me in the burn-victim unit of St. George hospital in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city. He was still in shock, so his wife, Donka, did most of the talking.
She explained how the couple were unemployed, in debt, and struggling to feed their children, when, two weeks before my visit, Georgi disappeared into his bedroom at their apartment in the industrial city of Dimitrovgrad. He came out doused in gasoline, convinced that the Mafia was outside his front door to collect on his debts and kill him. Standing in front of his family, he flicked on his lighter and burst into flames. Donka leapt onto him to put out the blaze while his sister threw water on him. They succeeded in saving Georgi, but his wife suffered third-degree burns all over her arms in the process.
"He was so depressed," she said. "He didn't know how to make anyone notice our poverty. So he did this horrible thing."
Comment: Who said that slavery ended? A large number of the world's population today is plagued by great poverty and psychopathic individuals will take advantage, use and abuse them as long as it satisfies their greed; from psychopathic governments to your garden-variety psychopath, the suffering caused is worldwide. Here are just a few recent examples:
Modern slavery, bread and circuses: Official records show 185 Nepalese workers died last year alone on stadium construction sites for Qatar for 2022 Soccer World Cup
Modern slavery: Gullah-Geechee people of Sapelo Island, Georgia being forced off by 600% property tax hike
How poverty wages for tea pickers fuel India's trade in child slavery
The Chocolate Wars: A bitter tale of greed and child slavery
Human Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery Affecting 30 Million Women and Children