Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune writes about Habeb Public Mental Hospital, the only place for mental health treatment in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu. "Doctors and aid workers see troubling signs that untold numbers of Somalis, brutalized by 16 years of chaos and tormented by the suicide bombings and assassinations of a growing Islamist insurgency, are fending off the jolts of violence the only way they can, by retreating inward, into the fog of mental illness."
The hospital in Mogadishu was established in 2005 and sees new stress cases every day. It treats patients with medication from the United States. The founder of the clinic, Abdulrahman Habeb, is a nurse who was trained in mental health at a 90-day course sponsored by the World Health Organization.
According to a 2001 United Nations report on the state of the world's mental health, 20 percent of all people exposed to low-intensity civil conflicts are scarred by serious behavioral disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder.
