“I am Samar,” she said, wearing a long red dress and sitting on the couch next to Mr. Ali. Two of her siblings, also in the car when their parents were killed, sat nearby.
“I’ve taken them many times to the hospital, where they get pills” for emotional problems, Mr. Ali said. “All of them take pills.”
He says Samar’s 8-year-old brother, Muhammad, talks to himself when he is alone. “When we go out and see a family, they get sad,” he said. Sometimes he finds the children in a room together, crying. “When they remember the accident, it’s like they just died.”
In the minds and hearts of victims, war does not just end after the immediate conflict is over. While this does not sound terribly ground breaking as a statement, mobilizing resources for this type of assistance is only more recently becoming a recognized need.
In August 2010, I wrote this story on psychosocial support for Iraqi refugees coming into Syria. It looks at how the UNHCR is providing psychosocial support for incoming refugees.
Hopefully, Samar’s willingness to share her story will draw greater attention to what may be a significant gap in humanitarian emergency services.