Background Studies carried in Mozambique show that injuries are one of the 10 top leading causes of death in the country. Evidence shown that, suicide is increasing at the Forensic Services in Maputo Central Hospital in Maputo city.

Aim Provide baseline profile of suicide.

Design/methods The study was cross-sectional of all non-natural death recorded from 2000–2009 at the Forensic Services in Maputo Central Hospital. This data was abstracted from hand written autopsy report, into 10 items on page, standardised form. The data collection was designed in order to evaluate the following variables: gender, race (assessed as African black, white, mongoloid and other), age (divided into 12 groups: 10–14; 15–19; 20–24;25–29;30–34;35–39;40–44; 45–49; 50–54; 55–59; 60–64; over 65-years-old), marital status (assessed as single; married/cohabitant; divorced/separated and widow), occupational status (assessed as blue-collar worker; low white-collar worker; inter/high white-collar worker and student/other), basic cause of death (assessed as hanging; fall; drowning; self-poisoning; firearm and other), place of the scene (assessed as at home, work place, public place, hospitals and without information). Data was analysed with bivariate analyses and significance level was set at ≤0.05.

Findings Over this period 12 732 autopsies have been done out of which 9% (n=893) were suicide. The important factors in ‘explaining’ suicide were at home, year 2008, being African black, male, single and blue collar-worker.