Rapport Save the Children mrt 2017

As the war in Syria pushes into its seventh year, Syrian children are grappling with a growing mental health crisis as poor funding leaves trauma-related issues often unaddressed.

From the moment 10-year-old Noor walked into the room, the heaviness of her heartache engulfed all of us. Even when she smiles, her eyes show a sadness that seems endless. There’s  a good reason for that. A year ago, she watched fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) group kill her father.

Noor, along with her mother and two sisters, thought that they too would be killed and that the eldest sister would be kidnapped and taken as a kind of “prize” by the fighters.

We were forced to leave and come to Turkey,” says Noor.

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“We thought that the airplanes would bomb our homes. We were hiding under the stairs. We didn’t leave the house. Me and my sister would make a tent with the pillows.”
Sadly, Noor is one of millions of Syrian children who have been surrounded by death and violence and have faced the deprivation and fear that result from being forced to flee their homes and country.

This week, Save the Children released a report warning that Syrian children are grappling with a growing mental health crisis.

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The staff at Al Sham say that 40 percent of the children they work with – including Noor – are in desperate need of long-term, extensive mental health treatment. It is treatment the association has neither the funds nor the expertise to provide.

And without proper funding, children like Noor will continue to suffer. The staff is worried about her.

Source: Al Jazeera