Hi °C | Lo °C Another Ulster family has been left "devastated" after their 16-year-old son took his own life, it emerged today.
David Chambers, a pupil at Armagh High School, died yesterday. His funeral will take place tomorrow.
He is the latest young person to take their life in a series of suicides in Northern Ireland within the last two months, including the suicides of three friends in Co Armagh, and a double suicide pact in Tyrone.
The Rev Sam Finlay, from Redrock Presbyterian Church, today led tributes to the teenager.
He said David, who had just completed his GCSEs, seemed like "a happy young teenager".
"He was a popular 16-year-old who had just finished his exams," he said.
"He was looking forward to possible future study in the autumn. He was an easy-going, happy young man."
Mr Finlay said David's parents, Paul and Sharon, and brother Jason are " coping as well as can be expected in the circumstances".
"Devastated is the only word you can use and they are trying their best to hold together for the rest of the family to get through these difficult few days," he said.
"There is great upset and it is a huge loss to any family no matter what the circumstances.
"We all wrestle with why these things happen. We don't understand why young people do this.
"This is what is confusing us all - we don't understand why it is someone in their late teens with life all ahead of them who see no way through or out of doing this. Our concern is to address their lives with the fact that there is hope and purpose for living and that is my primary concern."
Louise Meenan from Londonderry took her own life at the end of June.
GCSE student Lee Walker (15) from Tandragee was also a suicide victim. Five days earlier his pal James Topley took his own life. Three weeks before that his classmate Wayne Browne, who was also from Laurelvale, took his own life.
The three teenagers all attended the same school, travelling each day on the same bus to Craigavon Senior High School.
Meanwhile the bodies of Barry McGlade (20) from Omagh and Dubliner Nicholas Jamieson (24) were found at Gortin Lakes in Co Tyrone after an apparent suicide pact made over the internet.
l CRISIS HELPLINES:
Samaritans on 08457 909090 or email jo@samaritans.org.
Childline on 0800 1111.
PIPS (Public Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide and Self Harm) on 0808 808 8000.
