Former Bolivian President Áñez after her suicide attempt: “I don’t want to live anymore”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bolivia’s former interim president, Jeanine Áñez, 54, declared Tuesday (24) that she “no longer wants to live” and rejected the medication imposed on her, which she claims to have known nothing about.

She stated this three days after her suicide attempt in prison, where she has been held in pre-trial detention since March.

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“My children need to take charge of their own lives. I don’t want any more drugs that I don’t know what they are. I ask my jailers to tell me what I am taking,” the former president of Bolivia demanded in a message posted by her team on social media.

Áñez’s family and friends have said she is “frail” and “constantly suffers” because “every ten minutes someone comes into her cell to ask questions, to spy or who knows why.”

On the other hand, the former president was taken to a hospital on Tuesday to undergo a medical examination outside the prison. The measure was taken after she injured herself in a suicide attempt following the confirmation of the extension of the charges for which she is in pre-trial detention.

“She was taken for a neurophysiological examination, which are complementary examinations required by a medical panel,” said Dr. Monica Molina, the chief medical officer of the private clinic where the former president was taken amid much media attention.

Dozens of relatives of victims of the 2019 political massacres, for which Áñez is also on trial, gathered under slogans demanding justice and protesting the unusual treatment of the former interim president.

Many seem to forget that Áñez has only been charged and not convicted.

There were also protests in women’s and men’s prisons in the Bolivian capital of La Paz against the “privileges” they say Áñez enjoys and for “equal treatment,” local press La Razón reported.

On Tuesday, the former president was released from the women’s prison in La Paz for the fourth time in less than two weeks to undergo health exams. Molina said the results of the new tests conducted on Áñez would be announced the same day “because it is an important case.”

“It is just an examination to see if the nerves and muscles are functioning properly,” she added when asked if it was possible that Áñez would be admitted to a psychiatric center, as several private doctors had suggested to local media.

The ex-governor has been diagnosed with hypertension and anxiety by doctors who examined her three times in the past week, exacerbated by increasing malnutrition and weight loss, local media said, citing official reports that she frequently refuses to eat.

The former president’s latest suicide attempt came at a time when accusations against her have been mounting, including allegations of genocide, which Human Rights Watch (HRW) Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco called “nonsense” on Tuesday.

“The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) on Bolivia has presented valid evidence of the involvement of the security forces in two horrific massacres. But accusing Jeanine Ánez of genocide is nonsense,” he wrote on his Twitter profile.