Without taking the time to look up all the proper names and dates and statistics:

When the Europeans were on the verge of the final conquest of the Native Americans, a religion called the Ghost Dance arose, which basically turned into a way of committing mass suicide against the gatling guns.

When the Boers were on the verge of completing their conquest of the native peoples of South Africa, there arose a cattle-killing religious movement, where the people killed all their cattle and awaited the predicted demise of all the Boers. Instead the people starved to death.

In modern Uganda, Rwanda, etc, the Tutsi militia massacres the Hutu. The Hutu massacre the Tutsi. Survivors flee in the half-millions to the nearest (like Uganda) refuge. Uganda can't handle it. The powers that be, locally and internationally, cry crocodile tears and let everyone starve and suffer. Famine, illness, unemployment, unrelieved misery go on and on.

The suicide cults are a specific human response of desperation, in a desperate situation with basically no hope in sight.

The "solution" to the suicide-cult problem is the solution of the real-world problems to which they are reacting.

$0.02 and change -- Larry C.