“The world is no good anymore. It's a terrible place. So I am just gonna dwell within me from now”
these were probably the words of Sophie before she closed her eyes to the horrors that faced her family.
There are probably also the words of hundreds of other children who are giving up on the world and entering a comatose state, giving them the name- The Hibernating Children.
Sophie and her family are Asylum seekers from USSR. They arrived in December 2015 and reside in lodging allotted to refugees in a small the city in central Sweden.
Her father now carries her in a wheelchair. The same girl that now sits lifeless with a transparent feeding tube inserted in her nose, was once filled with the same vigor, the same liveliness that is expected of a 9 year old girl.
The now apathetic girl, must have drowned in the dreaded emotions she witnessed when their car was stopped by men in police uniforms. It was September 2015 and this was one of the many horrific events their family endured in a series of extortion and persecution by a local mafia.
"We were dragged out. Sophie was in the car so she witnessed me and her mother being roughly beaten," remembers Sophie's father.
The mother somehow escaped and took her little daughter with her to a friend's house. She beat the wall with her feet that night and yelling, "Please go and find my dad!"
She doesn't move her feet now.
It was after 3 days that her dad was able to contact them and they fled to Sweden three months later.
It was later when the Migration Board informed the family that they could no longer stay in Sweden that she stopped talking and eating and went into what they call - “the Resignation Syndrome.”
Sweden’s Homegrown Sickness:
This queer case of sickness began to emerge in Sweden in the late 1990s, but they were just a tiny number of cases and none of them were among asylum seekers.
But soon, the numbers exploded, reaching 400 between the two years from 2003-2005. The cases became predominantly restricted to children of families that were supposed to be repatriated back to the lands they fled.
It seemed the disease not only restricted national boundary but also pervaded in a specific geographic and ethnic groups. Those from the former USSR, the Balkans, Roma children, and most recently the Yazidis are seen as most vulnerable.
However, in the past there have been similar incidences of among Nazi concentration camp inmates, for example.
Strange Symptoms:
Medical journal Acta Pediatric describes these children as - “totally passive, immobile, lacks tonus, withdrawn, mute, unable to eat and drink, incontinent and not reacting to physical stimuli or pain,”
Scientifically speaking, resignation syndrome (RS) designates a long-standing disorder predominantly affecting psychologically traumatized children and adolescents in the midst of a strenuous and lengthy migration process.
Typically a depressive onset is followed by gradual withdrawal progressing via stupor into a state that prompts tube feeding and is characterized by failure to respond even to painful stimuli. The patient is seemingly unconscious.
While it is most commonly related to a comatose state, tests beg to differ. Many tests which gained a response from people in comas, did not work on the afflicted children.
Some doctors claim this to be a case of “willful dying” when families are denied asylum status.
Controversial Claims:
There have been all sorts of claims put up by people who fail to understand the science behind the disease. Some say the children are faking it in order to prevent deportation. Some even go to the length of accusing the parents of poisoning their children in hopes of staying in Sweden.
In an open letter to the Swedish minister of migration, forty-two psychiatrists asserted that the new restrictions on asylum seekers and the time it took the Migration Board to process their applications were causing the disease. The government was accused of “systemic child abuse.”
Swedish news Programmes were quick in picking up the story. Footages of children being deported back on stretchers shocked the nation. Even the King of Sweden had to respond, saying- “It’s terrible, what is happening to these poor children,”
The illness was seen as an affront to the country that prides itself on its commitment to helping the most vulnerable.
A reason to wake up:
While these children are closing their eyes to atrocities that refugees face in the toughest times of their life, it's time we open our eyes to them.
Many of these refugees flee their lands just in order to ensure survival. When they reach places where the quality of human life is much better, we life of citizens is values, all they crave is acceptance.
But in return, they are often treated as a disease, not allowed access to basic services, and deported by force. The social isolation, coupled with bereavement of loved ones and no material possession makes these people feel hopeless to the verge that living consciously becomes too hard for them.
It's time the nations wake up their conscience to create a system that allows systemic resettlement of refugees rather than treating them like junk.