Does anyone care about the consequences?
GENEVA (Reuters) - Half a million or more Iraqi children caught in fighting may be left so traumatized they will need psychological help, the United Nations children’s agency said on Friday.
“I suspect that some half a million children in Basra, Najaf Kerbala and Baghdad would possibly be in need of psycho-social rehabilitation once we go back in,” Carel de Rooy, UNICEF’s Iraq representative told a news briefing.
He was referring to the Iraqi cities that have witnessed the heaviest aerial bombardments or ground fighting since the U.S.-led invasion began eight days ago.
“There are 5.7 million children of primary school age in the country…A minimum figure of 10 percent of these children would need support. It could be much bigger,” de Rooy said.
While UNICEF has no surveys or studies of the potential effects of the bombing on children, de Rooy told how the nine-year-old son of a local UNICEF worker in Baghdad had to be sedated after windows of their home were shattered in an attack.
“This is one example. We don’t know what we will find when we go back. We suspect there might be a major issue of traumatized children,” he said.
The United Nations pulled all its international aid agency staff out of Iraq before the assault.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also expressed concern at the psychological effect bombing may have on children, the elderly and the physically and mentally disabled.
The WHO said it was also worried bombing could prevent the sick from reaching hospitals or receiving medical attention.
But it said there were no reports so far of any outbreak of disease in Iraq and that hospitals were not reporting shortages of medical supplies or staff.
De Rooy said UNICEF had experience in techniques for helping large numbers of children recover from conflicts, such as in East Timor and Mozambique, or from natural disasters.
UNICEF psychologists trained teenagers to organize strictly controlled games with the aim of helping younger children socialize normally and return to school.
Most recover after two or three sessions over six months, but typically around one percent are identified as needing individual counseling, de Rooy said.
“It costs about $20 per child. If we do get the resources we can bring in the people who have done this elsewhere and emulate it in Iraq on a large scale,” he said.