Abdelaziz Indjarene has flexible, firm and harmonious hands. With these he explores, stone by stone, between the cracks left by the rubble, looking for belongings of his mother or grandmother, who died in the earthquake in Morocco on September 8th. When accepting condolences, he raises his hands to chest level, draws a heart, and removes his fingers in a gesture of pain. “Mon coeur est cassé,” he says. My heart is broken. Imi N’Tala, in the Atlas Mountains southwest of Marrakech, was once a tourist destination and a geological paradise due to its rock formations and architecture. Everyone here, including Indjarene, lost something or someone in the earthquake. Almost no one receives psychological therapy.
This Friday, September 8, in Casablanca, 300 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, Hajar Eddhibi, 24, was relaxing in front of the television, exhausted after completing her psychology exam last year. At 11 and 11 at night, she began to feel dizzy and heard the living room clock making an unusual clack-clack, accompanied by uncoordinated bounces against the wall. Eddhibi remembers spending the next few hours in front of the screen, watching the news until the early hours of the morning. “I was terrified, I knew it was going to be something very serious,” she says. The earthquake killed nearly 3,000 people and devastated the High Atlas region, damaging about 60,000 homes. The next day, Eddhibi joined a newly formed collective of volunteers, professionals and psychology students from different cities in Morocco. The goal: to provide psychological counseling to survivors. The mobile phone line of this self-governing group called Psychologues Maghreb, which was activated two days after the earthquake, has received more than 1,200 calls to date. She is looked after by 33 psychologists and three legal advisors.
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In addition, the volunteers visited the affected areas four times in small groups, helping almost 400 people. Among the tents quickly erected on the sandy streets of Talat N Yacoub (a small town of about 8,000 people, 25 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicenter and 98 kilometers south of Marrakech), Souhail Abounnaim, 29-year-old leader of the initiative, and his colleagues spend long days looking after the neighbors. They are surprised at the reception they receive from the disaster survivors. “The change in mentality [desde el terremoto] As far as mental health goes, it’s incredible. Some people didn’t know what a psychologist was, others associated it with madness,” says Abounnaim. It is as if the earthquake gave people the final reason to talk about their mental health, emphasizes Eddhibi. “I am in some places for five hours and patients continue to come,” he emphasizes. As he leaves, he tells them not to be frustrated. Which will.
Fatima Idbem poses in the ruins of her former home in Amsguné on October 13 in the Moroccan Atlas. He lost everything and his brother and daughter died in the earthquake. Edu Leon
There is not only a problem of stigma in mental health care in Morocco, but also of scarcity. According to the media outlet Maroc Hebdo, in this country with a population of 37 million, in 2022 there were 214 psychologists and 343 psychiatrists, of which 16 were child psychiatrists.
Volunteers from Psychologues Maghreb say a common problem among survivors to whom they provide “psychological first aid” is that they relive that September night over and over again. “It’s like everything is repeating itself in their heads, they think the earthquake is happening over and over again,” says Abounnaim. His volunteer colleague Eddhibi says many suffer from panic attacks. “I explain to them what it is, how the body reacts. And we do some relaxation exercises and exercises that they can repeat if they feel the need,” explains Eddhibi, who switches languages like gestures: from French to English (languages in which he has studied), through Arabic and Berber (in which ). Developed). and Dariya, the Moroccan dialect in which he lives. Therapy is particularly complicated for younger children, as children have to be treated didactically and adolescents tend to isolate themselves. According to Unicef more than 100,000 minors were affected by the earthquake.
Imi N’tala (Morocco), where 84 bodies were recovered after a mountain collapsed on the town, burying its 80 houses.Edu Leon
Religion sometimes helps survivors, Eddhibi points out. “It’s their defense mechanism that helps them move forward and accept reality, process their emotions.”
In the coming months, the volunteers plan to follow up on the places they have already visited to see if anxiety and fear in their patients lessens over time. It was the case of a 40-year-old man who lost several members of his close family, recalls Abounnaim. He dared to enter the tents of Psychologues Maghreb and when he started to tell how he felt, he collapsed. “He cried so much. “He told me it was the first time he had cried since the earthquake.” They arranged a telephone appointment and at the end of the session he told the psychologist: “I don’t need you anymore, I’m doing very well, thank you very much . “I believe that you can pass this help on to others.”
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