Beirut: An inquest heard that a 13-year-old boy committed suicide by jumping to his death after viewing and posting online material about suicide while COVID-19 was under lockdown.

Zaheid Ali, according to the BBC, boarded a bus as usual on April 20, 2021, to go to school. However, he got off the bus early and jumped off Tower Bridge. Eight days later, his body was found in East London's River Thames.

Inside his jacket, a suicide note was discovered that contained song lyrics about a girl who committed suicide.

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The inquest heard that he had been following a US citizen who had committed suicide on social media, posted a YouTube countdown to his own suicide, and tweeted about taking his own life. Additionally, he texted school friends on WhatsApp, saying, "I hate life right now and kind of want to give up."

Mumen Ali, Zaheid's father, stated during the hearing that he was "baffled" by his son's passing because his actions had not been out of the ordinary. Especially over the Easter weekend, just days before he took his own life, the boy, who was born prematurely and had internal malabsorption, a digestive disorder, had been "glued to his phone," spending most of his time in his bedroom.

This was nothing unusual in his parents' eyes. According to the father's testimony before the court, they "put it down to his hormones changing from being a boy to a man," according to the Metro newspaper.

In addition, he stated that he believed his son was concerned about Islamophobia as a result of the attack in March 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which a gunman killed 51 people.

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At the hearing, Zaheid's vice-principal, Una Sookun, said the 13-year-old was "academically very able" but "quiet" and had a "very small friendship group" at Ark Globe Academy in London's Elephant and Castle.

When the lockdown started the following year, Sookun claimed that Zaheid, who had previously enjoyed his time in Year 7, began to struggle and stopped participating in his coursework. When he posted religious messages in a school chat forum in September 2020, a "small concern" was expressed.

He "called for people to die" in a similar chat room two months later and declared that he shouldn't have been born. On January 25, 2021, Zaheid wrote in an email to his teacher that he had a difficult time getting out of bed.

At the inquest, detective constable Khadra Mallin of the City of London Police testified that just after 8 a.m. on April 20, 2021, someone was heard in the Thames calling for assistance. Only the boy's jacket and bag were recovered after one person dove into the water. Before the body was found, more than a week had passed.

On the first day back after the Easter break, a fellow student reported to the police that Zaheid boarded the bus at his usual Canada Water stop to go to school but got off before it arrived at the building.

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The proviso cause of death was listed as immersion by pathologist Dr. Simi George. Dr. Julian Morris, an assistant coroner, concluded that Zaheid committed suicide and expressed his condolences to the family.