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Friday, May 24, 2024

Palestinian children seeking refuge in Egypt bedwet, suffer nightmares due to war in Gaza

“We call for an immediate ceasefire to save children’s lives and future,” Ms Toema pleaded.

• May 23, 2024
GAZA CHILDREN
GAZA CHILDREN[Credit: Middle East Monitor]

Humanitarian group, Save The Children, says Palestinian children who escaped the war in Gaza to seek refuge in Egypt are still being haunted by the devastating war memories in their new homes.

The organisation that was working with the Egyptian government to provide financial gifts and emotional assistance to refugees released a statement on Thursday stating that it had been inundated with requests for psychosocial and mental health support from over 500 Palestinians living in Egypt.

The group said 90 per cent of the requests were for children who had yet to recover from the Israeli incursion.

Parents are “concerned that their children are still triggered by loud noises, cannot sleep or even go to the toilet alone or are withdrawn and not showing any signs of emotion,” Save The Children said in the report.

The group reached out to refugee families in Egypt and was briefed about how the children found it nearly impossible to move past the terrors the war had brought them.

One Mr Waleed, 66, told Save The Children how fireworks now caused his children to shudder in fear.

“Here in Egypt, the children in the street play with fireworks, and when my children hear the fireworks, it makes them feel afraid and freak out when they hear the sounds. It triggers them,” the group cited Mr Waleed as saying.

Heba, mother to three children, said her son Rami, who used to be the superhero of the family, now cowered in fear at strange noises.

“Rami was actually known for always being really brave and he always used to comfort the family. But ever since he got injured, he’s turned into a child who fears any noise, the darkness, he can’t go to the bathroom alone and he can’t be alone,” Ms Heba narrated her son’s ordeal to the group.

Laila Toema, the group’s psychosocial support technical advisor in Egypt, called for a ceasefire stating that about one million children were “in desperate need of mental health services.”

“We call for an immediate ceasefire to save children’s lives and future,” Ms Toema pleaded.

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