I think that young boy I can still remember he didn't want to die he just wanted to scare his parents away

When he took it and he never thought that he would die

So I can still remember his last words because I used to see him every day until he's that.

What were his last words?

He was telling if I have listened to my parents, I shouldn't have done this.

It was something I cannot forget for the rest of my life.

The heads bang, their arms bang on a metal trolleys and we'd hear them coming to the ward

so beyond the ward waiting just seeing patients

and suddenly there'd be this rattling in the distance

and the rattler of a bam bam bam bam bam

make it noisier and noisier and you'd fall around and find these patients in

seizing for 24 hours because of the pesticide they drink.

I'm Matthew Hill and in this edition of Discovery for BBC World Service I'm in Sri Lanka to look at the impact of agricultural pesticides,

not their impact on the environment, but on people, vulnerable people.

Deaths from pesticide poisoning are a huge problem globally,

and it's not just the issue of accidental exposure to these toxins.

Around a fifth of all suicides worldwide involve the deliberate consumption of pesticides.

Just recently, the WHO has recommended countries ban the most hazardous pesticides, something Sri Lanka has already done.

So Sri Lanka experienced a rapid rise in its suicide rates in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the 1970s and 1980s it had one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

This is David Gunnell, Professor of Epidemiology at Britain's University of Bristol.

He's studied the impact of pesticides in Sri Lanka for decades.

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