Study Highlights “Unprecedented” Level of Trauma Facing Syrian Refugee Children, Warns of “Lost Generation”
Syria is facing the prospect of a “lost generation” unless the international community steps up efforts to address the growing humanitarian crisis in that country, according to the co-author of a new study from Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University.
Dr. Selcuk R. Sirin from New York University, one of the international contributors to the study, unveiled the study’s findings today at a round-table meeting at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In the first such field-based study of Syrian children living in refugee camps in Turkey close to the Syrian border, more than 300 school-age children were surveyed by Bahcesehir University research team to document psychological trauma and mental health impact of the conflict on children.
Speaking at the same meeting, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova praised the authors of the study for providing scientific data that gave a much more lucid picture of the dire humanitarian situation facing the refugees. She outlined the multi-pronged efforts undertaken by United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations, but said much more was needed to be done. Bokova also explained UNESCO’s work in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to provide schooling for refugee children from Syria.
“These results showed that close to 50 percent of these children are suffering from clinical depression and 35 percent suffer from Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),” said Dr. Sirin. “A large majority of the children surveyed (74%) said they had lost ‘someone they really cared’ in the conflict, and 58 percent reported experiencing stressful events putting them ‘in great danger’,” he added.
“Without proper psychosocial intervention, these mental health issues will burden the children in the long term,” according to the study that was led by Dr. Serap Ozer, a clinical psychologist at Bahcesehir University in Turkey with an international team of collaborators from University of California San Diego, New York University, and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, who provided technical expertise and support in fields of child trauma and applied psychology, public health, and epidemiology.
“More than a third of the children were reliving memories of these traumatic incidents, and have strong anxiety feelings about these events, with at least half had developed some negative feelings about themselves, the world and the future,” according to the study.
The study further warns that thousands of Syrian children are likely to be silently suffering the psychological trauma and mental distress and illness from this conflict. Researchers spent a week in November at the camp and provided basic psychological services, interviewed more than 300 children, and gathered drawings from 200 children depicting their experiences.
“This study clearly documents the urgent need to attend to the needs of these children,” Dr. Sirin told the meeting in Washington. “As winter quickly approaches, we as the world community should do our best to stop the sectarian violence in Syria and come up with interventions to help these children; they indeed represent the future of Syria.“
David Pollock, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute, thanked the participants, who included Middle East experts, journalists and members of the diplomatic corps in Washington, and underlined the importance of drawing more attention to the humanitarian crisis in Syria while the international community remains largely focused on the political aspects of the conflict.
TR
