Afghan war increases mental trauma cases

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Afghan war increases mental trauma cases

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They are in trauma because of three decades of war, poverty, family disputes and migration issues.

24 January,2012 12:32 pm

Mohammad Qasim, a 58-year-old butcher, is traumatised, depressed and anxious -- like 50 percent of his fellow Afghans after 30 years of war, according to government figures.Qasim saw his wife, daughter-in-law and two grandsons aged five and six die in a horrific suicide bombing in Kabul last month.More than 70 other people were also killed in the attack on a crowd of worshippers at a shrine during the Shiite holy day of Ashura on December 6.We are destroyed, our hopes are shattered, mourned Qasim, sitting alone on a ragged carpet in an empty house once filled with his grandsons joyful playing.I always shout when that incident comes to my mind. I am sleepless. When I do sleep sometimes I dream about that dreadful attack, I wake up, cry and yell, he told AFP.Qasim is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, an affliction he shares with half of his fellow Afghans, according to the director of the health ministrys mental health department, Doctor Bashir Ahmad Sarwari.They are in trauma mainly because of three decades of war, poverty, family disputes and migration issues.Sarwari says that although the number of mental health specialists is growing -- there are now about 70 -- they cannot cope with the demand for treatment in a population of some 30 million people.Hospital facilities are also pitiful -- there is just one state-run mental health hospital with 100 beds, backed by small care centres in some private hospitals.The experience remains bleak for victims, however, with a visit to a ward in the state-run hospital revealing two patients sitting on beds with their knees drawn up to chests, another on his side, eyes open, face grey.The United Nations says the number of civilians killed in violence in Afghanistan rose by 15 percent in the first six months of last year to 1,462, with Taliban insurgents blamed for 80 percent of the killings.Many men in Afghanistan suffer the same trauma as Qasim, but remain silent about it, believing that to admit mental problems is a sign of weakness, says Wolfgang Tissen, chief of the mental health project run by the humanitarian International Medical Corps.