Arriving in Europe — how refugees deal with their trauma - video Dailymotion

DW (English)

Almost all refugees experience some form of trauma on their way to Europe, which often isn't taken seriously, and necessary care is not given.

Transcript

00:00Every year thousands of refugees and asylum seekers risk dangerous land and

00:11sea routes to come to Europe. Along the way they endure threats of drowning,

00:17kidnapping, starvation and brutal violence. Is arrival in Europe the end of

00:23the struggle? How do refugees cope with trauma from their journeys?

00:30I still see these things in my dreams and I wake up terrified of where I will find myself.

00:38How long do these psychological scars persist?

00:40Sometimes those traumas appear and I'm a different person, like I'm totally

00:45depressed, I'm totally out of control.

00:59Before I came here, my only fear was drowning. When I was on the boat, I remembered my son.

01:07I looked up at the sky. It was all black. Everything around me was black. Everyone was scared. The

01:14waves started to rock the boat and water started flooding in. The petrol mixed with

01:19the water. It was a horrific scene. There is nothing but water around you. Nothing

01:24but darkness and loud engine noises. People are screaming. People are crying. It's a

01:31feeling that's impossible to imagine. You have to live it. In these moments of

01:35despair, I felt like I wouldn't be able to complete my journey and that I'd be one

01:42of those people we used to hear about who drowned. Just a number mentioned in the news.

01:48Mohammed fled his home city of Aleppo more than a decade ago at the beginning of the Syrian

01:54civil war. After fleeing, he travelled to Lebanon, where he found work as a videographer and got

02:02married and had a son. Mohammed's son was born with severely restricted blood flow to the

02:08brain. As a result, he now suffers from a form of cerebral palsy and has serious physical and

02:12vision impairments. In 2024, Mohammed made the difficult decision to leave his family

02:17behind and attempt to reach Germany via the dangerous central Mediterranean crossing. If successful,

02:23his aim was to bring his family to join him so that his son could receive specialist treatment

02:28for his worsening condition. The more we delay his treatment, the less his chance of recovery

02:34becomes. All these things put a lot of pressure on me. My son is growing up and I'm not there.

02:42I've been away from him for about a year and a half. He has almost forgotten that he has a father.

02:47After crossing from Egypt into Libya, Mohammed endured weeks of inhuman treatment at the hands of people

02:56smugglers, while waiting for his chance to cross the Mediterranean on a rickety wooden boat.

03:02In December of 2024, Mohammed was pulled from the water alongside more than 260 other refugees

03:08by the Life Support, a rescue ship operated by Italian NGO Emergency. Roberto Maccaroni has been the Life

03:15Support's medical coordinator since the ship's first rescue mission in 2021.

03:20We have to give daily a general medical report to the authorities are assured. Usually,

03:27we write on our report, general condition are good. That's true on a clinical point of view,

03:36but nobody would say to these people that their condition are good. Psychological status is

03:43something that it's not easy to investigate because these people are in a condition of torture,

03:49persecution, violence since years sometimes. They bring with themselves a trauma, all of them.

03:59You start to see strange behaviors. People that stay alone, people that start crying,

04:07children that are completely silent. Nearly 250,000 people entered Europe via irregular migration routes

04:15in 2024. Unsurprisingly, trauma and mental health issues are rife among refugees and asylum seekers.

04:24A recent study among Syrian refugees found that 43% suffered from PTSD and 40% from depression,

04:31a rate 10 times higher than among the general public. Now, as Mohamed works to navigate the

04:38complicated asylum process and bring his family to join him in the central German city of Halle,

04:43he struggles with his mental health. The nightmare of his journey is never far from his thoughts,

04:50and far away from friends and family, the ache of loneliness takes a heavy psychological toll.

04:55Unfortunately, I'm currently living a very lonely life. I'm alone, I cook for myself. I sit for an

05:03hour to talk to my son, then I go back to sleep. My life is a routine. It's very lonely. A gruesome kind

05:11of lonely. Of course, if someone comes from work and finds his family there, it provides a psychological

05:20relief reduces the pressure. Life is about being around others. If a person is not able to socialize,

05:27the loneliness can kill them. Laura Lupe is a Venezuelan psychologist who traveled to Spain more

05:37than a decade ago. In the beginning, you don't exist in anyone's mind. You are alone. People feel

05:46powerless. They feel like they have no agency. Another stage starts. You start to try to

05:53integrate in the form of making new networks and connections. Community is so important

06:02and such a protective factor. It is a human experience of connection, and it is the fact that you are

06:08existing in someone else's mind. That you are not alone with your thoughts, with your memories, with the

06:15trauma. In the first month or two, I started looking for job opportunities and places to volunteer.

06:23I volunteered at a local school to teach Syrian students. We are trying to work. We are learning

06:30the language. We are doing all the things that can help us integrate into this country.

06:34One of the most challenging aspects of migrating is whether you have the ability to work. It's part

06:46of your identity. You are on a sense of purpose and that you can actually contribute to the country. You

06:51need to practically reinvent yourself, start from scratch. My psychological issues and overthinking

07:01turned into a physical illness. I could not sleep at all. And after a few days, I collapsed and an ambulance

07:10took me to the hospital. It's been like this for four months. Most of the doctors say, it's just stress.

07:17Don't overthink it. In that moment, people are just wanting to survive. And at the moment,

07:26they may not be fully registering, let's say, the experience that they're going through.

07:33Of course, I know that it's very unhealthy to keep all these stresses and experiences to myself.

07:40As a recently arrived person, I don't have much experience and I don't know where to get support

07:46to improve my mental health. Many refugees continue to struggle with severe mental health issues even

07:58years after arriving in Europe. 28-year-old Arif Mirzaad fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took

08:05control in August 2021. After arriving in Madrid on a Spanish evacuation flight, Arif faced the prospect

08:13of starting a new life without any friends, family, work or time to process what he had just experienced.

08:22The feeling of loneliness started from that moment. I was scared. I was lost totally.

08:28You get to a new country, to a new culture, to a place where you cannot communicate with people.

08:34I didn't know how to start. I didn't know what to do.

08:37One month later, two months later, begin to appear all the trauma symptoms.

08:44Maria Angeles Plaza is a psychologist with the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid.

08:50For more than 20 years, she's worked with refugees and asylum seekers in the Spanish capital of Madrid.

08:55People have to tell the painful stories and memories one again and again to the asylum office, the lawyer,

09:06the psychologist, the social workers. All that memories and its feelings are coming again and again.

09:13And that is very re-traumatising. The normal thing that refugees do is don't talk about what happened.

09:21Now, nearly four years later, Arif speaks fluent Spanish, has friends and a job he enjoys.

09:29But the traumas of his exit from Afghanistan are never far away.

09:33And the memories and experiences of his old life still cause him severe anxiety on a daily basis.

09:41The trauma, the depression appears again. And like, I want to break something.

09:46I hurt myself with needles. I lived with my disability in Afghanistan for many years.

09:53When he was 10, Arif stepped on a landmine while walking near his home in northern Afghanistan.

09:58The explosion took his right leg and nearly killed him.

10:03Growing up as an amputee in Afghanistan is very difficult. Because every day, people were treating me

10:10like I'm not a human. I get used to live with those negativity, those negative comments.

10:17I think the trauma of losing my leg as a child has also contributed to my mental health struggles

10:23as an adult. It's important to understand the whole context and understand that the body may be here and

10:32may be working, may be functioning, but the mind takes longer to catch up and to actually work through

10:39everything that has happened. A few months ago, I started having a very strange and strong panic

10:46attack. I was really scared and I went to the hospital, but they didn't take my problem seriously.

10:53All they would do was give me an appointment with a psychologist, but the appointment was not for six

10:59months. We don't have enough doctors and support. Mental health is a human right. It's important to give

11:08attention to this part of the society. These traumas, these emotions, these negative feelings,

11:16they are not going to disappear. They will be with you for a long time. I try to share my problems,

11:22my traumas with my friends, calling my family, talking with my mom, hearing the voices of my siblings,

11:30praying. There's lots of ways to relax ourselves when the anxiety, when the depression manifests.

11:36Back in Germany, Mohamed continues to struggle with the psychological burden of loneliness

11:42and uncertainty that is linked to his life as a new refugee. He knows his journey is far from over.

11:50The most important thing for me is to see my son again, to see my wife again and to live together in a

11:56safe country. Whenever I have free time, I go to a quiet place, like a lake or a river, and I think of them.

12:12Will we be reunited in the coming years or not?

12:23Will we be reunited in the soles?

12:30Will we be reunited in the Salmonese territories?

12:32Will a beautiful destination next?

12:34Will allows me in my Ultron bluff.

12:37Will there be the Mutsu the U weaves in theelets so that I got

12:38in the face of my heart? Will a beautiful tower from Barcelona.

12:42Will her come toР somers and some town?

12:44Will it be the most important one?

12:46Will the American 입원 at the center?

Arriving in Europe — how refugees deal with their trauma

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