Five people killed EVERY DAY by assisted suicide in Belgium as euthanasia cases soar by 25 per cent in last year alone

• Rise in deaths will fuel fears about country's controversial policies
• Under-60s accounted for just 15 per cent of the total number of cases
• Belgium was only second country in Europe after Holland to legalise practice
  

By SIMON CALDWELL

PUBLISHED: 15:53 GMT, 28 May 2014 | UPDATED: 17:24 GMT, 28 May 2014

Doctors in Belgium are killing an average of five people every day by euthanasia, new figures have revealed.

The statistics also show a huge 27 per cent surge in the number of euthanasia cases in the last year alone.

The soaring number of deaths will inevitably fuel fears that euthanasia is out of control in Belgium, a country which only months ago became the first in the world to allow doctors to kill terminally ill children.

The figures, published in Sudpresse, Belgium’s leading French-speaking newspaper, showed that 1,816 cases of euthanasia were reported in 2013 compared to to 1,432 in 2012, an overall increase of 26.8 per cent.

‘You could say that currently there are 150 cases of euthanasia per month in Belgium or, even more telling, five people euthanised a day,’ the newspaper said.

Dailymail