A person either is or is not insane” – in Somalia, there are no words for mental health care

With the support of FCA, psychotherapist Rowda Olad works in grassroots-level mental health care and participates in the reconciliation work in Somalia.

”In Somalia, people talk of invisible wounds, dhaawac yada qarsoon,” says psychotherapist Rowda Olad and describes how shocked she was to see the state of the entire nation’s mental health when she arrived in Somalia in 2016.

”A young boy was driving the moped taxi, tuktuk, at breakneck speed through central Mogadishu. I asked him to slow down. ’You’re going to get us killed!’ I yelled from the back seat. ’What does it matter if we die,’ the boy replied.

”I was extremely shocked.”

Rowda says she immediately noticed that especially young men were not only fearless but also very angry. But in fact, almost everybody in Somalia seemed to be suffering from psychological traumas caused by the civil war and the violence, or from post-traumatic symptoms resulting from them.

”There is a lot of crime, as well as disregard for other people’s possessions or lives. Whenever there was an explosion in Mogadishu, people rushed to see what had happened, whereas the natural reaction would be to run away.”

”A person who is not afraid is not psychologically healthy,” says Rowda. “Seeing mutilated humans and bodies or victims of explosions is traumatising, especially to children.”

She witnessed and recorded all this during the first year after she and her family moved back to Somalia in 2016.

Psychological trauma changes a person’s world view and behaviour. In Somalia, aggressive behaviour can be seen often in everyday situations.