Somalia doomed for the next half century

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TheAnswer2
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Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by TheAnswer2 »

Image

MOGADISHU - Mohamed Abdulla Hersi reclines on a foam mattress in the Habeb Rehabilitation Treatment Center's crowded mental ward. His eyes are glazed over from antipsychotic drugs, probably some combination of chlorpromazine and haloperidol, but we can't be sure. His medical files, in a bundle in the facility's office, do not list his drug regimen. Hersi doesn't even bother to swat away the flies gathering on his face and body. Loose-fitting combat fatigues, emblazoned with the light blue and white-star emblem of Somalia's tattered army, expose his chest and two bullet-sized scars -- evidence of the battlefield violence he has suffered since joining one of the country's myriad militia groups as a boy.

"Where is my M-16? My Kalashnikov?" he murmurs, seemingly unaware that he is miles from the front lines, where his fellow soldiers fight an enemy with links to al Qaeda and ambitions to overthrow the U.N.-backed government. Hersi speaks in a muddled stream of consciousness about gunfights, explosions, and mangled comrades from his years serving under various militia leaders, generals, and presidents. He mumbles about a car-bomb blast he survived in Kismayo, about Osama bin Laden, and about his father, who apparently died in Minneapolis.

"I was 7 when I joined the soldiers. My life has been for fighting only," he says. "I fought for all the warlords. In Jubaland, Puntland, Mogadishu. I grew up with the war. I joined Somalia's national forces. I killed al-Shabab, but I do not know how many."

The 29-year-old calls himself a general -- though his fatigues suggest he is an ordinary foot soldier -- and yearns to exit the locked compound and return to his comrades in arms. "I have more experience at the bad things," he says.

Somalia has among the highest rates of mental illness globally, affecting at least one-third of its estimated 10 million people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Rates are higher in Mogadishu and the turbulent south, where civilians have endured harsher stresses of war, drought, and instability. Many witnesses of bloodshed and atrocities face post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Without treatment, sufferers can experience depression and maniacal, violent fits, and they are more prone to substance abuse -- often of the khat plant that sends chewers' minds and pulses racing. A psychosis, such as schizophrenia, can follow, though the number of Somalis who have been formally diagnosed pales in comparison with the number who are afflicted.

After decades of civil war, Somalia has virtually no capacity to cope with widespread mental illness. The country's only trained psychiatrist died last year in a car crash; the better-trained staff members at mental health clinics like the Habeb Rehabilitation Treatment Center have only three-month diplomas in basic psychiatry from the WHO. Most are untrained volunteers.

At the Mogadishu facility where Hersi lies, vacantly staring into space, mattresses are strewn across floors, squeezed into storerooms and onto porches. Patients while away the hours in idle gossip and argument, hunkered down under flimsy steel roofs. A few years back, many patients were chained to their beds, but they have since been freed after WHO officials intervened.

As limited as the care is for patients in Habeb's clinics, however, the situation for the majority of Somalis suffering from mental trauma is far worse. In much of the country, modern medicine is not the first approach to curing mental illness. Because conditions ranging from epilepsy to schizophrenia are widely believed to be the result of possession by spirits or djinns, cures are often sought in faith and folklore. Mullahs routinely tie sufferers to trees and flog them with branches in order to exorcise demons. In rural areas, according to WHO officials, the mentally ill are sometimes locked indoors with a hyena for three-day stretches. Local legend has it that the arched-back scavengers possess mystical powers and can eat the evil spirits that poison the mind. Uncontrollable victims of mental trauma have simply been beaten to death by villagers.

Even in downtown Mogadishu, it is clear that few of the city's wild-eyed denizens receive treatment. On one street, a dreadlocked woman pulls down her dress and exposes her breasts. Locals say her husband and seven children perished from disease. Elsewhere, a man grimaces by the roadside. In his hand is a bunch of khat, a socially accepted but addictive stimulant. Under a nearby bridge, unemployed homeless men with bloodshot eyes rest on flattened cardboard boxes after a night's leaf-chewing.

These sufferers roam free. Others are locked down, out of sight. Abubakar Mohamed Sheikhow, 23, was chained by his wrists and ankles in a metal shack in southwest Mogadishu for 12 months before one of Habeb's rescue teams located him last year. Neighbors had restrained him after he violently attacked his mother.

Dowlay Hassaney, a 27-year-old schizophrenic, was chained to a bush in Eel-Adde, some 55 miles southwest of Mogadishu, when health workers found her in 2011. Her husband had been apparently undeterred by her mental state: She gave birth three times during eight years spent shackled in the sun, according to Habeb. Mobile teams from Habeb's mental-health facilities have saved roughly 2,500 mentally ill Somalis from chains in the southern part of the country, but Habeb guesses that another 5,000 remain shackled by their families in Mogadishu alone.

Read on if you have the stomach to.
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Spec2014
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Spec2014 »

TheAnswer2 wrote:Image

MOGADISHU - Mohamed Abdulla Hersi reclines on a foam mattress in the Habeb Rehabilitation Treatment Center's crowded mental ward. His eyes are glazed over from antipsychotic drugs, probably some combination of chlorpromazine and haloperidol, but we can't be sure. His medical files, in a bundle in the facility's office, do not list his drug regimen. Hersi doesn't even bother to swat away the flies gathering on his face and body. Loose-fitting combat fatigues, emblazoned with the light blue and white-star emblem of Somalia's tattered army, expose his chest and two bullet-sized scars -- evidence of the battlefield violence he has suffered since joining one of the country's myriad militia groups as a boy.

"Where is my M-16? My Kalashnikov?" he murmurs, seemingly unaware that he is miles from the front lines, where his fellow soldiers fight an enemy with links to al Qaeda and ambitions to overthrow the U.N.-backed government. Hersi speaks in a muddled stream of consciousness about gunfights, explosions, and mangled comrades from his years serving under various militia leaders, generals, and presidents. He mumbles about a car-bomb blast he survived in Kismayo, about Osama bin Laden, and about his father, who apparently died in Minneapolis.

"I was 7 when I joined the soldiers. My life has been for fighting only," he says. "I fought for all the warlords. In Jubaland, Puntland, Mogadishu. I grew up with the war. I joined Somalia's national forces. I killed al-Shabab, but I do not know how many."

The 29-year-old calls himself a general -- though his fatigues suggest he is an ordinary foot soldier -- and yearns to exit the locked compound and return to his comrades in arms. "I have more experience at the bad things," he says.

Somalia has among the highest rates of mental illness globally, affecting at least one-third of its estimated 10 million people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Rates are higher in Mogadishu and the turbulent south, where civilians have endured harsher stresses of war, drought, and instability. Many witnesses of bloodshed and atrocities face post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Without treatment, sufferers can experience depression and maniacal, violent fits, and they are more prone to substance abuse -- often of the khat plant that sends chewers' minds and pulses racing. A psychosis, such as schizophrenia, can follow, though the number of Somalis who have been formally diagnosed pales in comparison with the number who are afflicted.

After decades of civil war, Somalia has virtually no capacity to cope with widespread mental illness. The country's only trained psychiatrist died last year in a car crash; the better-trained staff members at mental health clinics like the Habeb Rehabilitation Treatment Center have only three-month diplomas in basic psychiatry from the WHO. Most are untrained volunteers.

At the Mogadishu facility where Hersi lies, vacantly staring into space, mattresses are strewn across floors, squeezed into storerooms and onto porches. Patients while away the hours in idle gossip and argument, hunkered down under flimsy steel roofs. A few years back, many patients were chained to their beds, but they have since been freed after WHO officials intervened.

As limited as the care is for patients in Habeb's clinics, however, the situation for the majority of Somalis suffering from mental trauma is far worse. In much of the country, modern medicine is not the first approach to curing mental illness. Because conditions ranging from epilepsy to schizophrenia are widely believed to be the result of possession by spirits or djinns, cures are often sought in faith and folklore. Mullahs routinely tie sufferers to trees and flog them with branches in order to exorcise demons. In rural areas, according to WHO officials, the mentally ill are sometimes locked indoors with a hyena for three-day stretches. Local legend has it that the arched-back scavengers possess mystical powers and can eat the evil spirits that poison the mind. Uncontrollable victims of mental trauma have simply been beaten to death by villagers.

Even in downtown Mogadishu, it is clear that few of the city's wild-eyed denizens receive treatment. On one street, a dreadlocked woman pulls down her dress and exposes her breasts. Locals say her husband and seven children perished from disease. Elsewhere, a man grimaces by the roadside. In his hand is a bunch of khat, a socially accepted but addictive stimulant. Under a nearby bridge, unemployed homeless men with bloodshot eyes rest on flattened cardboard boxes after a night's leaf-chewing.

These sufferers roam free. Others are locked down, out of sight. Abubakar Mohamed Sheikhow, 23, was chained by his wrists and ankles in a metal shack in southwest Mogadishu for 12 months before one of Habeb's rescue teams located him last year. Neighbors had restrained him after he violently attacked his mother.

Dowlay Hassaney, a 27-year-old schizophrenic, was chained to a bush in Eel-Adde, some 55 miles southwest of Mogadishu, when health workers found her in 2011. Her husband had been apparently undeterred by her mental state: She gave birth three times during eight years spent shackled in the sun, according to Habeb. Mobile teams from Habeb's mental-health facilities have saved roughly 2,500 mentally ill Somalis from chains in the southern part of the country, but Habeb guesses that another 5,000 remain shackled by their families in Mogadishu alone.

Read on if you have the stomach to.

A country like Somalia with a large pool of young people & one of the highest birth rates in the world isn't going to be impacted by adult drug addicts who for one reason or another aren't contributing to society! I reside in the United States & 3/4ths of this country is being swept by an acute methamphetamine addiction & use! Yet it still functions & doesn't have a shortage of able minds or bodies! But thanks for highlighting the "Khat" problem that is centuries old in Somalia & the Horn of Africa! Its not a new phenomenon at all! Which explains the lack of replies to this thread! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Gabre »

Yeah Somalia is fucked for a long time to come, good read.
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Adali »

interesting read.
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CushiticReflections
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by CushiticReflections »

How sad. That photo says it all.

It's despicable how young children are admitted into the military. It doesn't matter how dire the situation is, no seven-year old should have to fight. Usually the children soldiers are given khat perhaps to make them better soldiers (calmer, etc) and it obviously has negative lasting effects. But besides the civil war, a major factor is the social acceptability of khat. It should be considered to be on the same level as alcohol, in my opinion. Then maybe the number of mentally ill people in Somalia would not be as high as it is. It's a terrible situation over all, especially considering Somalis' views on the disabled and mentally ill and how they treat them.
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by jamal9 »

this topic was already posted. I come from s/land but pls stop bashing somalia :arrow:
TheAnswer2
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by TheAnswer2 »

Spec2014 wrote:
A country like Somalia with a large pool of young people & one of the highest birth rates in the world isn't going to be impacted by adult drug addicts who for one reason or another aren't contributing to society! I reside in the United States & 3/4ths of this country is being swept by an acute methamphetamine addiction & use! Yet it still functions & doesn't have a shortage of able minds or bodies! But thanks for highlighting the "Khat" problem that is centuries old in Somalia & the Horn of Africa! Its not a new phenomenon at all! Which explains the lack of replies to this thread! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Hi, thanks for your reply.

You cannot compare Somalia to United States for the following reasons: USA has a population of 300mil+ with a critical mass of technocrats and a highly skilled workforce. The percentage of addicts wouldn't amount to even 2%. And even if it were higher, it wouldn't jeopardise the US economy as there are many many skilled workers. Somalia on the other hand has a population of 10 mil (?), a non existant skilled workforce, and a whole third of the population can be said to be mentally ill. I think this difference matters a whole lot.

You correctly stated Somalia has high birth rates, don't you think this poses an even graver problem? When you have 1/3 of the population clinically insane, and they are breeding like rabbits, soon we will soon have a nation entirely made up of retards.
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by AgentOfChaos »

TheAnswer2 wrote: You cannot compare Somalia to United States for the following reasons....
Oh really? Well, that sure is convenient, but on whose standards of "mental health" are we judging Somalia upon?

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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Negritude »

Lol @ the surprise.
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Siciid85 »

This just effed up my night
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by FarhanYare »

mental illness is not just isolated to only those in somalia, but also alot of the somali beobal in the diaspora are experiencing the illness too :(
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Cherine »

^Yes that's because they're refugees who have fled these war torn regions. We have some of them showing symptoms of mental illness on this board too. Again refugees. I do wonder sometimes at all these people rushing to visit the place.
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by FarhanYare »

^^
actually most of them arrive ayago fiyoow and end up going nutz as a result of the enviroment they are in that takes toll on them interms of all the stress that comes with all the problems they end up facing :|
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Sheikh Mustafa »

Stop Blaming Wars. Somalis have always had mental diseases even way longer. That is why we talk louder and are too quick to kill.
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Re: Somalia doomed for the next half century

Post by Nolol cusub »

I was recently in Xamar, Oct to Dec 2012 to be exact. Most people I have met were probably the most genuine, down to earth Somalis I have seen anywhere. It was shocking how human, community minded people over there were. Even the kids impressed me with their boundless energy, positive outlook, creativity and resourcefulness. It was refreshing after 20 years how strong Somali spirit is.
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