CAIRO (AP) – In Egypt, the years of turmoil following its 2011 uprising have seen revolutionary graffiti fade away as the country slowly tries to move on, but hidden scars remain for children who grew up during the chaos and lost loved ones.
The grief touches children of all kinds in this country, cutting across Christian and Muslim families, the sons of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to the daughters of police officers and soldiers. And how they process the sorrow varies widely.
“Kids have different understandings for what they experience, and they are psychologically affected by different things than adults,” says psychiatrist Eman Gaber, who leads a rehabilitation program for traumatized children. “When a child loses a parent, a relative, a friend or a person he likes or knows, maybe he wants the killer or killers to feel the loss he feels.
“The pain doesn’t come to the person who is dead, but to the ones that are still alive.”
Gaber says there are not any statistics about how many children suffered trauma in Egypt’s recent unrest, though it’s “still hard not to be exposed to any violence,” whether that was rioting in their neighborhood or images seen on television or the Internet.