Kiev - Two Ukrainian teenagers at a state-run orphanage have killed themselves, while two others have attempted suicide, the Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.

All were permanent residents at Orphanage Number Two in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, said Viktor Sychenko, an Education Ministry official.

Both the attempted and successful suicides took place over a single week, Sychenko said.

The first death came on May 22, when an orphan aged 19 hanged herself while visiting relatives.

A 17-year-old girl attempted to kill herself two days later near an exterior wall of the orphanage, by cutting open veins in her wrists. A medical team responding to the emergency saved her life.

On the following day, May 25, a 17-year-old boy committed suicide by hanging himself from one of the orphanage walls.

The last incident came on May 27, when another 17-year-old boy threw himself from a fifth story window at the orphanage, surviving the fall but suffering severe head injuries.

He was listed at the orphanage hospital in critical condition. The girl was expected to make a full recovery from the slashes in her wrists.

Information about the suicides and suicide attempts was late in coming to the attention of government authorities, Synchenko said, because the Orphanage Number Two director attempted "to conceal systematically" news of the incidents.

A government commission was investigating to determine the cause of the suicides and suicide attempts, and if necessary criminal charges against orphanage staff would be filed, he said.

Synchenko declined to speculate on possible reasons for the suicides.

State psychologists held discussions with other children living at the orphanage, and currently all the orphans have been sent to summer vacation camps.

Ukraine's orphanages are almost without exception poorly funded and understaffed. - Sapa-dpa