100 amongst 12,694 children in relief camps face severe trauma amid Manipur violence: Govt data

A government release has reported that amidst the ongoing violence in Manipur, a total of 12,694 children have found refuge in relief camps, with 100 of them facing severe trauma, necessitating professional counseling, as revealed in the data provided by the state social welfare department.

The department is actively overseeing the condition of severely malnourished children, swiftly sending them to the state-operated JNIMS hospital in Imphal for treatment. Till date, 16 children have received treatment for severe malnourishment, according to the release.

To address the psychological scars left by the violence, the social welfare department has enlisted the support of a dedicated team comprising qualified medical practitioners and child psychiatrists who are voluntarily offering professional counseling to severely traumatized children. The government release said that trained field functionaries of the department identify stress affected children at relief camps and employ ‘play and dance’ methods to identify stress affected children.

“Whenever they find such severely traumatised children, they will be identified, and taken to professional counsellors. We’ve done this for a little more than 100 children. We hope that this number does not increase and these traumatised children can go back to normal very soon,” said Ng Uttam Singh, director of the social welfare department. Manipur has been witnessing ethnic conflict since the first week of May, in which more than 150 people have been killed and nearly 50,000 people displaced. 

The status of the relief camps in terms of their child-friendliness is another issue that the social welfare department is attempting to address. According to the statement, a UNICEF team that visited the state, presented a model for setting up child-friendly relief camps as the relief camps are unplanned and set up on a need basis. The release further stated that officials led by Manipur Chief Secretary Dr. Vineet Joshi have been inspecting relief camps to assess the living conditions of children accommodated there.