2023-07-17 18:03:08
Suicide in Libya… Mental patients pay the price of an endless conflict
Libyans are regarding to end their lives in silence, surrounding their suffering that those around them did not notice, nor did their governments, which are busy with endless conflicts, in a country that lacks mental health facilities, even the entire south of the country is served by one clinic and one doctor.
– The family of the Libyan child Musab (14 years old) was grieved following they found him hanged in a room on a farm near his house, following he was harassed and threatened with kidnapping by young men who lived next to Qabas Al-Maarifa School in Qasr Bin Ghashir, south of Tripoli, at the end of December 2020, according to his father. Al-Tawati Rashid: “My child did not find anyone to listen, support and protect him. I used to travel a lot because of my work as a truck driver. I only stay with my family for a few days, following which I travel and leave them.” He added to “The New Arab” that his son did not tell the family regarding the bullying he was suffering from. It worsened over the days until it reached harassment.
Before committing suicide, Rashid kept absent from school, although he used to get ready every morning and leave the house as if he was going to study, but he used to stay in the farm room, and return home following school hours ended, and the school administration informed the father upon his visit that his son was absent for days. many times, without explaining his complete withdrawal from school because of his fear of the attackers and the failure to take any action once morest them in order to end his life in the end.
What is the size of the phenomenon in Libya?
Musab is one of the 78 cases of suicide that occurred in 2020, according to the annual report for the year 2020 issued by the Ministry of Interior of the former Government of National Accord in Tripoli in early 2021 (it took control of areas in western and northern Libya), while the report of the Ministry of Interior for the year 2021 indicates What was seen by the author of the investigation is that the ministry recorded 46 suicide cases during the period from January to July 2021.
The cases are divided into 65% of males, and 35% of females. The report also shows that 73% of suicide cases are distributed among the age groups from 19 to 37 years. The report does not include all of Libya, but only 24 districts mainly in western cities such as Sabratha, Al-Qarbulli. , Al-Ajailat, Tripoli, Al-Khums, Misurata, Al-Zawiya, and Jadu.” Also, the cases of the Libyan East and the areas controlled by the militias of retired Major General Khalifa Haftar were not counted due to the division between the state agencies.
Global Health: Years of conflict have affected the mental health of many people
And “the suicide rate in Libya reached 4.5 cases per 100,000 people, with 304 suicides in 2019, including 206 males and 98 females,” according to the World Health Organization’s report “Suicide Worldwide – 2019,” while the rate was in 5.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016, with 327 suicides, including 258 males and 69 females, according to the World Health Organization.
The Center for Social Studies affiliated with the Ministry of Social Affairs in the Government of National Unity concluded that the highest rates of suicide cases from 2017 to 2022 were in the cities of Al-Bayda, Sabratha and Al-Qarbulli, respectively, according to Zahra Awaid, Director of the Awareness and Social Media Department, confirming To Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, suicide in Sabratha and Al-Qar Bolli is related to drugs, especially since the suicide bombers are young people. She says: “The two cities have the most prominent centers of smuggling operations, whether drugs or people.”
Reasons for the aggravation of suicide
The Center for Social Studies documented 53 cases of suicide during the period from 2017 to the end of 2022, distributed among “Tripoli, Sabratha, Al-Ajeilat, Jado, Al-Qarboli, Misurata, Zliten, Al-Khums, Msallata, Benghazi, Ajdabiya, Al-Bayda, Tobruk, and Sabha,” says Fatima Belkacem. , a member of the Management Committee, noting that the research teams visited 10 schools in Tripoli during the period from 2018 to the end of 2022, and discovered the presence of children (between 14 and 16 years) who suffer from severe psychological and social pressures, and some of them have motives and suffer from suicidal thoughts.
And she continues: One of them told us that he hates life because his requests are not met by his father, who always answers that he does not have money, adding to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed: “The child wants to leave his family, which he said he hates, or die.” Belkacem and the research team monitored a girl in middle school, who drew her house into two halves, and lives in a state of isolation. When searching, they found that her family is living in great division due to their differences, noting that the possibility of these backgrounds and pressures behind suicide cases, whose levels worsen and vary according to regions, as the northern city of Al-Bayda witnessed In eastern Libya, the number of suicide cases and attempts reached 60 in 2017, which prompted the government in the east of the country emanating from the Libyan parliament to form a committee to study the phenomenon of suicide in the city, according to a member of the committee, Idris Amtoul, who confirmed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the committee It stopped two weeks following its formation, due to the lack of government support, indicating that the number of suicide cases documented by the committee during its short work was 17 cases and 6 cases of attempted suicide.
Absence of treatment and rehabilitation centers and scarcity of mental health doctors
The investigator contacted 11 families in the cities of Sabratha, Al-Ajeelat, Al-Qarbouli, Tobruk, Tripoli, and Benghazi, to find out the reasons for the suicide of one of their members, and 9 of them attribute the matter to what they describe as “magic”, justifying that with reasons related to the victim’s superiority in his studies or that his work makes him a target for envious people. While two families indicated other reasons, including the family of Talal Al-Lawati (32 years old), who was found to have committed suicide with his pistol shot, inside his residence in Benghazi, in July 2021, according to his cousin Akram, stressing that Talal was a fighter in the Khalifa Haftar Brigades, before he joined. In training courses, to participate in several battles, but his behavior began to change, as he was absent for several months from joining the battalion in which he worked. He also used to talk to the family regarding feeling pain whenever he remembered those who were killed next to him in battles, and sometimes he would take out his gun and empty everything in it. From bullets in the sky while he was in a state of anger, and he often talked regarding his hatred of life, indicating that he had asked his mother to break off his engagement before ending his life.
How did the years of conflict affect the Libyans?
The years of conflict in Libya affected the mental health of many people, according to what was confirmed by the World Health Organization on its page in November 2019, and drew attention to the results of a study published in July 2019 in The Lancet medical journal, and confirmed that one Out of every five people in different war zones in the world suffers from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, while many of them suffer from severe forms of these mental illnesses, while the Center for Social Studies believes that the percentage of Suicide for economic reasons amounts to 50%, according to Owaid, but she does not rule out the existence of other reasons behind the phenomenon, most of which fall into the category of depression as a result of diseases and other psychological stresses, and she says that “the causes of depression are many, such as the loss of a son, as we monitored the suicide of a father in the city of Zawiya following The death of his only son in a painful car accident made the father isolated and then depressed before committing suicide with a weapon.
She added, “There are other reasons related to families’ lack of knowledge of the backgrounds and symptoms of mental illnesses in which children enter, and most of them turn to treatment with incantations and incantations, so that the disease worsens and ends in suicide.” Coping with the mental illnesses that lead to it.
The foregoing is confirmed by a predictive analysis study published in 2012 in the journal PLOS ONE (a scientific publication issued by the Public Library of Science in San Francisco, California), on the effects of the Libyan conflict in 2011 on the mental and psychological health of society. The acute incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder in samples that were exposed to high levels of political terrorism and traumatic events amounted to 12.4%, and 19.8% the percentage of those suffering from severe depression, indicating that this requires 154 employees to work full-time to deal with these cases, but organization estimates The World Health Organization indicates that there were 0.18 psychiatrists and social workers per 100,000 inhabitants at that time, according to the study.
However, the mental and psychiatric specialist at Al-Razi Governmental Hospital for Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases, Dr. Abdullah Al-Bakoush, believes that depression and mental illness are not the reason for the exacerbation of suicides, because these problems have existed in society for long periods and the country has not witnessed a rise in suicide rates because of them, stressing to ” The New Arab” that the economic crisis the country is going through, and the youth’s sense of frustration and drug abuse, all together lead to an exacerbation of the phenomenon.
The suicide rate due to drug and alcohol abuse reached 11.76%, according to a study issued by the Research Center at the Tripoli Security Directorate in September 2020. However, the study found that 35.25% committed suicide due to mental disorders and depression, 26.47% due to isolation and surrender to despair, and 17. 64% suffered from psychological and social pressures, and 8.82% suffered from unemployment and emptiness.
Lack of interest in mental health
The Social Studies Center supervised 15 educational and awareness sessions in schools in the city of Tripoli and the surrounding areas during the period from 2018 to 2022, to support children psychologically, especially those belonging to families displaced by wars, according to Belkacem, but the matter is not enough to confront the phenomenon, as psychological support centers are absent in Libya as well. Awaid says, and the reason is due to the authorities’ preoccupation with political crises and the conflicts and wars the country is going through, in addition to the lack of funding, as these centers need to be equipped, rehabilitated and prepared for cadres, and the matter appears in what the World Health Organization mentioned in February 2019 following the attack on the doctor The only psychiatrist in the mental health clinic in the city of Sebha, which is the only facility in southern Libya, which was confirmed by the study of the causes of suicide in the city of Tripoli, issued on September 22, 2020, stressing the need to establish treatment and rehabilitation centers for those who have attempted suicide or have tendencies to do so. Activating and supporting psychiatry and spreading the culture of treatment among those suffering from depression and mental disorders and their families.
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