One evening this June, I found myself on the roof of a bombed-out hospital in Aleppo. It was pitch black because the city’s east side is without electricity. My colleagues and I watched jets fly by, dropping bombs on the outskirts of the besieged region. Exploding rockets could be heard throughout the night.
I’m a pediatrician in Chicago. But this summer, I traveled with two colleagues from the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) to Aleppo. There, I saw firsthand the way this war is maiming children emotionally as well as physically. The kids I encountered often struggled with debilitating trauma. Some had stopped eating; others were barely able to communicate.
My experience echoes across the country. In one town, CNN reported a rash of child suicide attempts. “The children are psychologically crushed and tired. When we do activities like singing with them, they don’t react at all, they don’t laugh like they would normally,” a teacher in the western town of Madaya told Save the Children. “They draw images of children being butchered in the war, or tanks, or the siege and lack of food.” In a report, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said that “the most prevalent and most significant clinical problems among Syrians are emotional disorders, such as: depression, prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and various forms of anxiety disorders.” According to Save the Children, “the repercussions for the future mental health of an entire generation could be catastrophic.”
[For more of this story, written by John Kahler, go to https://www.washingtonpost.com...m_term=.78f2be98bedb]
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