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At least 124 people in Nunavik have taken their lives in the past nine years.

The latest numbers on northern suicide, provided by the Quebec coroner, point to a long-standing crisis that appears to be getting worse.

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The region went from having 13 suicide deaths per year in 2015 to 16 the following year and 22 in 2017.

Roughly one in 100 people in Quebec’s North are taking their own lives — a statistic that doesn’t include suicide attempts or self-harming behaviour.

If that same rate were applied to a city the size of Montreal, 17,000 residents would be dying by suicide each year.

These figures, obtained by the Montreal Gazette, come as Inuit in the remote, sparsely populated region renewed calls last week for the federal and provincial governments to take “urgent action” over the prevalence of suicide in their communities.

Local leaders rang the alarm bell during an Oct. 30 meeting in Kuujjuaq to address northern Quebec’s latest crisis, which has seen 15 people take their lives in less than 10 months.