By Gina Chon
At one of the checkpoints I went through today, I saw a girl in a school uniform, perhaps 10 years old, carrying a pink backpack. She was alone and looked uncertain as several foreign guards asked her in broken Arabic where she was going.
She was supposed to meet her dad at a building where he works but the armed guards seemed to make her nervous and she didn’t know how to answer them. Since she didn’t come in a car and was walking to her destination, the guards told her she could go. But she didn’t know how to get there and tears welled up in her eyes.
Feeling sorry for her, we offered to give her a ride and the tears disappeared. But she still didn’t smile. The solemn look remained on her face until we dropped her off.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be that young and have to go through a checkpoint with armed guards. I know it’s a pretty minor event considering all the things that happen here, but I’m sure it adds up in the end. I wondered about the things she had seen and experienced and what kind of person she would be when she grew up.
The United Nations’ refugee agency Tuesday released the survey results of interviews conducted with 754 Iraqis who had fled their country and are now living in Syria. Every single person interviewed had reported experiencing at least one traumatic event as defined by the Harvard Trauma Study.
Eighty percent had witnessed a shooting, while 77% have been affected by air bombardments, shelling or rocket attacks. Seventy-two percent have witnessed a car bombing and 75% know someone who has been killed.
My Iraqi friends can tell the difference in the sounds of a mortar round, car explosion or a rocket attack. They’ve been hearing those kinds of noises for decades, from the Iran-Iraq war to the Gulf War to the American invasion.
Nobody knows what the long-term effects will be but the U.N. says it’s already seeing some results from increased divorces to an uptick in domestic violence. The shootings and explosions are just one aspect of it. Iraqis also deal with every day stresses from frequent power outages, inconsistent availability of fresh water and hours long lines for fuel. As Sarmad previously reported, instances of suicide have grown amid the stress, especially among women, many of whom are forced to stay at home to avoid violence. Many of them have lost loved ones.
The U.N. said the survey results showed the urgent need for mental-health programs but of course, that’s another service lacking in Iraq.