Students in Canadian town stage walkout after suicide crisis

Hundreds of high school students walked out of class on Tuesday in Woodstock, Ontario, in the wake of the suicides of five teenagers, hoping to raise awareness of the teen crisis which is gripping the small Canadian city.

Students from the city's five high schools and a few elementary students joined the walkout, which included a mass rally in Museum Square downtown Woodstock. They gathered to share stories and discuss what can be done to help young people struggling with mental illness.

Police say that five people aged 19 and younger have killed themselves in Woodstock since February of 2016 in what an official of the Canadian Mental Health Association is calling a "suicide contagion."

Another 36 young people have expressed suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide in Oxford County (which includes Woodstock and seven neighboring communities) since the beginning of the year, according to Woodstock police.

Officials in the area say they're working together to ensure they have enough resources to deal with the onslaught of calls to crisis lines, but high school students say they aren't seeing the effects.

This is nt an isolated case. A couple of months ago, suicide crisis in Attawapiskat came to light, and members of the northern Ontario community have been urging governments to address what many see as a growing problem in smaller communities. Endit