Libya's children scarred and haunted by war: 'It's all they know' | Middle East Eye - 0 views
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Libya war health children psychology psychiatry PTSD
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Violent language has become the norm even for the youngest citizens. Residents fear that this could be devastating for the future of the country.Mustafa Mohamed, a father of five who remained in Tripoli throughout the conflict, is concerned that this normalisation of violence and weaponry among young children will have devastating effects on future society.“If the new generation is already thinking in terms of guns and militias by the age of seven or eight years old, then how will they be able to focus on the positive aspects of society?” he said.Residents say that children in Libya have been deprived of healthy and normal childhoods by the ongoing war.
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On 10 August, the United Nations children agency UNICEF warned that more than half a million children in Libya need help. More than 80,000 children have been internally displaced and migrant children in Libya are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Public Health facilities have been dramatically impacted by the civil war in Libya. Forty-three out of 98 hospitals assessed are either partially functional or not functional at all due to a shortage of medicines, medical supplies and human resources.In 2013, the WHO found that there were only 12 psychiatrists in the country, with most services concentrated in the two psychiatric hospitals, situated in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya’s two largest cities. Resources in this field remain extremely scarce in the country, with only one percent or less of total Health expenditure targeted on this sector.
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“So many parents bring their children in, suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, or sometimes undiagnosed mental health problems,” she told me.“The problem is we don’t have the provisions to deal with these issues. Most children end up seeing children’s doctors with no specialist training in psychiatry, which is a big problem,”