PESHAWAR, Nov 26: Twenty-three years of war have ravaged the mental health and psychological functioning of the people in Afghanistan and some five million Afghans are very likely to be affected by psychological distress, said Loretta Hieber Girardet of World Health Organisation here on Monday.

Speaking at a media workshop, organised by the World Health Organization, she  said killings, executions, massive persecution,   forced internal displacement, fear associated with living in mined areas, and latest escalation of violence had left an indelible mark on the Afghan population.

Talking about the condition of women in Afghanistan, Loretta said that they had not only seen a dramatic deterioration in their psychological, family and social life over the past decade, but had also been excluded from education and employment. She said they had also enormous difficulties in getting access to health care. because of their dependence on other family members. She said the condiion of widows, pregnant women and survivors of sexual violence was pitiable. In Kabul alone, she said, an estimated 60,000 widows were   forced to live without traditional family support.

About the psychological diseases among Afghan people, the WHO official said that the most commonly reported conditions were depression, anxiety and psychosomatic problems, such as insomnia or back and stomach aches. Similarly, researches showed that many refugees, who had seen family members being killed or executed in front of them, were suffering from mental distress, she added.

Lamenting the lack of psychological support in the  war- torn Afghanistan, she revealed that, for a population of about 25 million, the reported number of psychiatrists was just eight in the entire country  in addition to 18 psychiatric nurses and psychologists.

Other speakers said that the greatest threat faced by Afghan refugees included diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection and measles. But it was malnutrition, they emphasized, that lowered their resistance power, specially children’s, and made them susceptible to these diseases.