Time to Talk: mental health and refugees
Today is Time to Talk Day, an initiative to get the nation talking about mental health; one in four people in the UK will be affected by a mental health problem at some point in their lives. Across Europe, where thousands of refugees remain stranded, charities are reporting an increase in mental health problems among refugees. Amy Merone reflects on meeting individuals who shared candidly their experiences of mental distress as a result of diminishing hopes of ever being relocated.
‘We have psychological problems. They said we would stay here for one year. Now they say that we will stay here for three years…What am I going to do for all this time here? I’m very tired in my mind…’
Sitting down next to her sister, Halima draws her feet up onto the chair and wraps her arms around her knees. Slowly she moves her head, responding to the different voices in the conversation taking place around her. Every now and again she smiles a beautiful smile.
As we talk her sister, Samira, explains that Halima has a mental health problem. In Syria, where the family is from, Halima received all the care and treatment she needed. The family tried to remain in Syria for as long as they could. They were the last to leave their village and only then when a bomb fell on their home and rendered them homeless.
Travelling with her two children, and Halima, Samira describes the journey to Greece as a treacherous one. The border crossing from Syria to Turkey was horrific, she says. At times, Samira had to pay men to carry her sister across difficult terrain. She describes a harrowing sea crossing during which people suggested that she should throw Halima into the sea because of her mental health problems.
When we meet last August, Samira and her family have already been in Greece for seven months. Samira looks exhausted, as though the life is slowly draining out of her by being here.
‘We went out from the war of our country to find a better life and now it is like we have a psychological war because of what we are passing through every day here’, Samira says.
‘We have psychological problems. They said we would stay here for one year. Now they say that we will stay here for three years. I had a big problem in my mind when I heard this. I did not want to eat. I wanted to stop everything. What am I going to do for all this time here? I’m very tired in my mind, so I try not to believe everything I hear.’
Samira’s psychological distress is the norm rather than the exception. Almost every person I speak to in Greece shares with me how their sense of mental well-being has been affected by being stranded on a continent that seemingly does not want them.
Increase in mental health problems
A recent report by Medecins sans Frontieres has found that among refugees living in camps across Greece there are increased instances of mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and symptoms like persistent headaches. An aid worker in Greece suggests to me that for the people she and her colleagues have met, their primary distress is now first and foremost related to the conditions they are living in as refugees.
It is a sentiment expressed profoundly by Zahra, a 29-year-old woman from Afghanistan. ‘It feels like hell’, she tells me, moments after meeting her in the refugee camp that she and her children have been staying in for eight months by the time we meet in August. ‘I went through real danger to get to this place and now I am in the same place as I was before.
‘Everything to me feels like suicide here. People say you must stay here and follow the rules, or you must go back. I cannot go back. It is suicide. I am thinking that one day I am just going to kill myself and my family.
‘I want somebody to hear my voice. I am a mother with three children who needs to get out of this country.’
I am alarmed by Zahra’s admission that she has thoughts of killing herself. I raise it with our partner who tells me that there is no permanent mental health professional in the camp; only occasional volunteers. Furthermore, there is only one social worker who, unable to speak Farsi, works through a translator. The demand for her support, and time, is overwhelming.
Need for psychological and social support services
The need for psychological and social support services is paramount. ‘We feel that we need a psychological doctor’, Firaz tells me. From Damascus in Syria, he is wheeling himself around the corridors of the camp when we meet. While attempting to scale a fence, he fell and broke his foot and is now confined to a wheelchair. He is clearly, and understandably, agitated during our conversation.
‘We asked for a doctor and now we go to see a psychological doctor. We feel like we are destroyed people — first from the war in Syria, then what we went through in Turkey and now what is happening to us in Greece. We don’t see any of these human rights that they talk about in Europe.
‘I want to ask you, if you had a family and you had to pass through all this, in this way, would you not feel bad?’
I tell him I would. He falls silent for a while before continuing: ‘I don’t have a heart any more. I don’t feel anything. I don’t have any hope — nothing. The person you are speaking with now, he doesn’t have any feelings inside of him. He doesn’t have any hope’.
The psychological and emotional distress caused by the political paralysis in failing to relocate refugees already in Europe is sadly not unique to Greece. In Serbia, aid workers have been raising the alarm for some time.
Christian Aid is helping
‘Every day we are seeing more and more refugees arrive. We are witnessing a visible increase in levels of anxiety and depression among the refugee population’, Marija Vranesevic, Programme Manager at Philanthropy, a Christian Aid partner in Serbia, says.
Your support for our Refugee Crisis Appeal is making a difference for refugees who are experiencing mental health problems. As part of their humanitarian response Philanthropy is providing psycho-social support services, such as recreational activities and helping facilitate group-based support networks, for refugees living in camps across Serbia.
Many, Marija says, have not only witnessed acts of violence in their homeland but have now spent many months in a camp with few distractions and diminishing hopes of being relocated. The situation has led many with little else to do but ruminate.
An inclusive response to emergencies
Claire Grant, Humanitarian Inclusion Specialist at Christian Aid, says:
‘A response that focuses on material and physical needs alone is inadequate. Displacement has the potential to break down social fabric, routine and increase feelings of helplessness. It is our responsibility as humanitarian actors to look at wellbeing holistically by upholding safety, dignity, accessibility to services and to empower communities to speak out and be heard’.
For Samira, she finishes speaking to me as so many do — by looking away, into the distance, perhaps with nothing left to say. Later, when I am interviewing another family, I glance across and see Halima wandering around alone outside her family’s tent. I consider how unfamiliar and disorientating this experience must be for her, and for her family.
Back at the hotel I look up the origin of Halima’s name and learn that in Arabic it means ‘humane’. I am struck by how much the situation, for Halima and those like her, is anything but.
Amy Merone is Media and Communications Advisor at Christian Aid, working on the European refugee response and the Middle East.
Christian Aid works in Greece and Serbia through its partners to provide psycho- social support services, cash assistance, shelter, and legal protection services to refugee communities. In the UK and Europe, we advocate for long-term practical solutions to the humanitarian situation across Europe, including the resettlement and relocation of refugees, as well as greater investment in addressing the root causes of displacement worldwide.
