Refugee Children: Broken Hearts Looking For Hope

The situation of refugee children goes beyond a humanitarian catastrophe. Their broken hearts long for hope and their young senses face psychological trauma that will leave deep traces.

We must remember that in children’s brains there is an almost instinctive idea that their parents can protect them from harm. When that no longer happens, when they get rid of family members and the world collapses in front of them, something is destroyed in their minds.

Psychological help should also be part of the basic humanitarian aid that all refugee camps offer. Many refugees, especially children and young people, need mental help to be able to heal the wounds that can not be seen on the skin, but which can remain forever in their minds and souls.

The tragedy that refugee children experience

Covering their situation for a minute in the media is not enough to understand what all these children and their families are experiencing. Syrian refugees carry more in their luggage than the few assets they carry with them. They also carry with them the weight of massacres, rapes, bombs, poachers and entire villages that perish.

Many of these children leave their countries with their families and head for the Mediterranean. A boat full of people with bad quality life jackets is their only way to find a better world. But the sea is dangerous and often becomes an extra trauma for their already affected young minds.

Jan Kizilhan, an expert in child psychology, said in the “German Society for Child and Adolescent Medicine” that 1 in 5 refugee children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and that most of them will have psychological scars for life.

The effects of the war on refugee children

Organizations such as the International Medical Corps conducted psychological tests on around 8,000 Syrian refugees on the Jordanian border a few months ago. The results were as follows:

• 28% of adults were so desperate that they almost felt paralyzed.
• 25% said they did not want to live. The rest said that all the strength they had was based on the need to give their children a better future.
• Meanwhile, the children in these refugee camps suffered from migraines, diarrhea and nightmares. Obvious symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that their parents did not know how to handle.
• The clinical picture of refugee children is almost always the same: severe sleep problems, depression and stress that cause them to relive the traumatic experiences over and over again, so that in the end they cannot distinguish between what was real or not.

As we can see, the health aspects when it comes to these people and especially the younger ones are something that goes beyond cold and hunger. We talked about inner damage that persists in adulthood, which shapes a character based on despair ; and there is nothing more heartbreaking than a child who does not remember what a smile is, and who cannot see with hope for the future.

Psychological help for refugee children

Governments and international organizations can take the first step in shaping a real solution to this problem. Psychological help that can be offered to children and their families at the camps will not be enough to achieve long-term improvement. It is necessary to offer stability, a protected environment, habits and a routine in order for them to feel safe.

Something as basic as being able to go to school again and integrated routines will make them stop worrying about their families and themselves. They need to have a sense of security and control in their lives.

Once these basic needs are met, we can begin to work on their fears, memories and traumas. Strategies such as drawing can help channel much of this.

All children have an ability to come to terms with terrible things that have happened in their past. Through appropriate psychotherapy, along with love for their families and a community that can help them, we can always offer them a second chance.

We hope this will take the right path. We hope that governments think of the well-being of everyone in the world and not just the citizens of their own country. For horrors have no homelands or flags, and the pain that these families and their children have is something we should not look away from.