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Bombings put people in ‘state of trauma’

* Psychologist says violence has left people suffering ‘at extreme levels’
* Nurse says she is too scared to send her children to school

RAWALPINDI: The anxious wives were on the phone again to their husbands in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, a terrorist target where daily routine can turn to horror in an instant.

“She's very worried," Abdul Habib said after putting down the receiver while visiting a friend's carpet shop close to the site of a bombing which left 35 people dead.

Not far from the carpet shop, Junaid Anwar Junaid's wife had also phoned. “She calls two or three times a day," said Junaid, 62, who sells copper ornaments and other handicrafts.

Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked extremists have carried out a two-year campaign of attacks that have killed more than 2,400 people.

The indiscriminate killing, beamed into living rooms by television channels broadcasting round the clock, is cultivating a state of fear and uncertainty across Pakistan.

“The whole nation is in a state of trauma," said Naima Hasan, a psychologist who has counselled victims of the attacks. There have around 300 blasts since the wave of violence began. Last week in northwestern city Peshawar 118 people – many of them women and children – died in a market bombing that was the country's second-worst attack.

“The problem is this: you can't stop it," said Habib, 57. "Anything can happen at any time. Mentally, everybody's upset."That feeling of helplessness is common, said the psychologist. "They feel that they are unable to cope with this terrorism," she said. Along Mall Road, a wide, busy street in front of the carpet shop and Junaid's business, they have already had a lot to cope with.

In the latest attack to strike this city, a bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up close to people queuing for their salaries outside a Pakistani bank and hotel, police said.

A short walk from Junaid's shop, another suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden car into a convoy, killing the military's top doctor and at least seven other people in February last year.

Suffering: Similar violence across the country has left people suffering "at extreme levels", Naima said. "Their mental well-being is at stake."

Pakistanis are "losing quality of life", constantly in a state of fear and anxiety, which is leading to ailments as well as sleep disorders, she said. Junaid has been in business for a quarter of a century at the same location, which he remembers was once "a very peaceful place". Sitting behind his desk, the man with a long beard and glasses still manages to chuckle and smile but says the security problem has produced two types of personalities.

He is no psychologist but says: “There is an effect on the mental soundness of Pakistanis.” So focused on militants, the country is unable to move forward, he said.

“When I go out from my home, I am ready for death,” says Idrees, 29, who runs a simple medical clinic built of plywood within sight of the spot where the military doctor died. Idrees's attitude is typical, Naima said.

Naseem Akhtar, 29, said her worried family told her to stay away from work at Idrees's clinic after the latest bombing. Just a few months after moving to Rawalpindi from her village southwest of the city, she says she is going back for the sake of her two children.

Afraid: "I am so afraid that I don't want to send them to school in the city," she said. The nation can eventually recover from its moderately traumatised state if government forces can exert control and prevent attacks, Naima said. Prolonged insecurity will lead to severe psychological trauma that will badly damage people's lives and place them in need of longer-term counselling support, she said. “This is not a headache which you can remedy by taking two aspirin," the psychologist said. afp

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