GENEVA, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Syria and neighboring countries in the Middle East face a critical need for more mental health care for victims of the humanitarian crisis, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday.
Marking World Mental Health Day, Robert Mardini, regional director at ICRC, said he grew up in Lebanon during the time of its civil war.
"When I grew up in Lebanon during the civil war, I recalled it was a time people had great difficulties to speak of suffering psychological challenges and to share their invisible scars from the war. People just had to cope and to move on," said Mardini.
He said colleagues in Syria have countless similar stories and he cited the family of 13 who had fled from recent fighting, only to lose 10 of them along the way to explosions, airstrikes and sniper fire.
"Let us think of the invisible scars of the survivors of this family," said Mardini.
He said that over the past five years, the Middle East has seen close to half a million people killed, 1.5 million injured, 56 million dependent on humanitarian aid, and 28 million people who had to flee because of fighting.
Behind the statistics, Mardini said, there is a huge challenge for countries to develop emergency mental health care so they can cope with the mounting demand for those who are mentally broken.
He noted than in 2000, the ICRC had no mental health programs, now it has more than 70.
Avril Patterson, ICRC health coordinator in Syria, who has spent four years there, said people need to look at the numbers given by Mardini and try to imagine what they mean.
"When you add to the death of your spouse, the death of your child or children while fleeing, airstrikes, mines and snipers. Let's imagine you add to this the loss of your job and your home, everything you have ever owned and worked for gone," said Patterson.
Milena Osorio, the ICRC's mental health and psychosocial support adviser, also unveiled the ICRC's guidelines on mental health and psychological support.
