Where children dream of killing Psychologist says 70% of Afghans mentally unhealthy
December 17, 2001
Bryan Pearson
Agence France-PresseKABUL - Ten-year-old Hamid, smaller in stature than his classmates but already aged far beyond his years, has one ambition in life -- to be a killer.
The Afghan boy draws pictures of himself as a man using a Kalashnikov to mow down "the enemy" -- those who shot his father dead before his eyes, according to his psychologist, Sema Usmani.
Hamid cries a lot, hardly eats and wakes up terror-stricken at night -- symptoms common to many children, and even some adults, in Afghanistan.
Other children Dr. Usmani counsels tear their hair out, sleep restlessly, fight with siblings, chew constantly while sleeping and become withdrawn.
But Hamid's case has really challenged her skills.
"He keeps repeating, 'I want to kill those guys.' How do you talk someone out of wanting to be a killer?" she asks. Though she has not managed to extract the full story of how the boy's father died, she knows it was at the hands of the Taliban.
"All the enemies in the picture are wearing black turbans," Ms. Usmani said, referring to the Taliban's trademark headgear.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of others like Hamid.
Abdul Aqyar, the head of Kabul's Mental Health Hospital, says the past months of fighting between opposition forces and the Taliban, preceded by years of bloodletting and topped by waves of U.S. bombing raids on Afghan cities, has "significantly" damaged the mental well-being of around 70% of Afghans -- children and adults.
His team of 30 psychologists -- who run the only psychological unit in the country -- already have their hands full.
"When economic stability returns, we will be flooded with patients," he said. "Right now, people are just trying to stay alive and are too poor even to go to a doctor who will refer them to us. Instead, knowing something is wrong, they go to a pharmacist, who gives them headache pills."
Headache pills did not help 28-year-old Pewand Ali, who ended up being treated at Dr. Aqyar's unit after smashing his six-year-old daughter's ribs with a hammer.
"I was cracking a nut with the hammer, when she came to me and tugged my arm," Mr. Ali said.
"I became so angry I hit her with the hammer in the ribs. She was badly hurt. Afterwards I felt really, really terrible."
He said since the fighting began, he has had trouble sleeping and, indicating with a series of short, sharp stabbing motions, added: "I tried to kill myself."
Due to the poor state of the psychological wing of the Mental Health Hospital in central Kabul, few patients want to be admitted, preferring to be treated in the day so they can go home at night.
Dark, wet, dirty, cold and smelly, the rooms look more like prison cells than therapeutic centres.
Some are used for treating heroin addicts, others for men and women who have become withdrawn and sullen as a result of trauma caused by poor economic conditions and the bombings.
"Parents prefer not to leave their children here," said the head of the women's section of the hospital, Sharifa Yadgary.
"We used to get no support at all from the Taliban and we are still waiting to see if the new government will help us. Even the non-governmental organizations are ignoring us.
"We need heating, we need medicines -- and we need to be paid," she said, pointing out that neither she nor her staff have received a salary for five months.
Following a recent visit to Kabul, Carol Bellamy, head of the UN Children's Fund, said a study of Afghan children two years ago, before the latest wave of violence, showed them to be deeply traumatized.
"We talk about the resilience of kids, but don't ever think that a kid running up and down with a kite is going to forget entirely what he or she has been through," she said.
In Kabul, Dr. Aqyar, struggling to make his cash-strapped psychological unit as effective as possible, made a similar point.
"They may look like any other child, but some have been to the public executions the Taliban used to hold at Kabul's stadium. They are scarred for life."
