{"id":65283,"date":"2021-04-15T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T06:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/central-african-republic\/central-african-republic-children-traumatized-by-violence-confront-their-fear-and-anger\/"},"modified":"2021-04-15T08:00:15","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T06:00:15","slug":"central-african-republic-children-traumatized-by-violence-confront-their-fear-and-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/central-african-republic\/central-african-republic-children-traumatized-by-violence-confront-their-fear-and-anger\/","title":{"rendered":"Central African Republic: Children traumatized by violence confront their fear and anger"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The latest clashes in the Central African Republic began in December 2020. They involve armed groups and government forces and have forced over 180,000 people to flee their homes, seeking a semblance of safety.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Some are living in camps for displaced persons near the town of Kaga-Bandoro. But whether they have just arrived or been here for months \u2013 or even years \u2013 everybody in these camps shares the same painful experiences.<\/p>\n

The stories of pillaging, rape and summary execution are endless, and they are all similar. We hear them from men and women, and also from children who, like their parents, are in real need of psychological support.<\/p>\n

In addition to losing their familiar surroundings, many of these children have been deeply affected by what they have experienced or witnessed. Many have lost family or friends.<\/p>\n

Fabrice (13) had to watch, powerless, as his brother was murdered in 2019. \u201cThey shot at my brother. He fell. He lay dying on the ground. It hurts when I think of him. I sleep very badly. I have lots of nightmares.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a country where psychiatric services are virtually non-existent (there is only one psychiatrist practising in the whole of the Central African Republic), and the health system suffers from chronic under-funding, traditional healers,\u00a0marabouts and shamans are the usual option when it comes to treating psychological trauma. Parents turn to these practitioners when their child suffers from nightmares or from images they cannot shake off, when deep depression makes them avoid their friends, or when they faint for reasons their families cannot understand.<\/p>\n

Romaric Debas, a Central African Red Cross volunteer: \u201cThe most common emotions are fear, sadness and anger. Some children are really sad, and some even refuse to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2014, ICRC mental health specialists in the Kaga-Bandoro region have been in dialogue with traditional healers and parents, to convince them that the traditional approach and \u201cmodern\u201d treatment can be complementary. Healers\u00a0are now sending children to the ICRC, either immediately \u2013 without taking action themselves \u2013 or when a child\u2019s condition fails to improve despite their rituals.<\/p>\n

In all cases, the aim is to make the child better, while respecting everyone\u2019s beliefs. When the parents give their consent, the ICRC\u2019s therapists can get to work.<\/p>\n

By replying to a questionnaire, parents provide the information needed to assess the psychological state of their child. Psychological support is provided once a week in the camps for displaced persons, with the aid of Central African Red Cross volunteers, either in groups or with individual children.<\/p>\n

Therapists use stories, drawing, breathing exercises or simply the spoken word during individual sessions at Kaga-Bandoro Hospital.<\/p>\n

Karine (10) has been deeply affected by her family\u2019s forced displacement and the recent death of her mother. She tells us that talking to the therapy team has helped:\u00a0\u201cI went to see the people from the Red Cross and they comforted me. I don\u2019t have nightmares any more. I can have fun with the other children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parents are always involved in the therapy. The ICRC sets up an oral contract with them, enabling its therapists to monitor the child\u2019s progress. On average, therapy lasts three months. Over 550 children in the three camps for displaced persons at Kaga-Bandoro underwent therapy in 2020.<\/p>\n

The needs remain enormous, with the result that none of the children affected by the most recent displacements have been able to receive psychological support so far. But the results are encouraging. Parents living in the town are starting to contact the ICRC, asking the organization to treat their children.<\/p>\n

ICRC president Peter Maurer was in Kaga-Bandoro on 11 February to see the results of the mental health programme for himself. \u201cWhen we started thinking about a more holistic approach to health problems, we began talking about psychological problems, the kinds of mental health problem that people are exposed to during war. I\u2019m very encouraged to see that the first programmes are now under way. Because it\u2019s true that in the past, we perhaps paid too much attention to the physical aspect. We saw the physical wounds and we treated them. But we didn\u2019t see the invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ICRC hopes that the Central African government will be able to start providing adequate mental health services in the not too distant future, if stability and development replace violence.3 So that Central African society \u2013 children and adults alike \u2013 can finally overcome its deep psychological traumas.<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group<\/a> on behalf of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).<\/i>
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Source<\/a>
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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Central Africa Central African Republic<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo The latest clashes in the Central African Republic began in December 2020. They involve armed groups and government forces and have forced over 180,000 people to flee their homes, seeking a semblance of safety. Some are living in camps for displaced persons near the town of Kaga-Bandoro. But whether they have just arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":65284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/63e2ff12d465344.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[258,256,4380,15139,302,5707,5934,4696,4689,303,7371,17339,12166,257,5935,254,23773,2148],"class_list":["post-65283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-central-african-republic","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-african","tag-anger","tag-car","tag-car-news","tag-central","tag-central-africa","tag-central-african-republic","tag-central-african-republic-news","tag-children","tag-confront","tag-fear","tag-news","tag-republic","tag-south-africa-today","tag-traumatized","tag-violence"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/63e2ff12d465344.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}