Dying from the fear of death seems as aberrant as feeding oneself with the thought of food, rather than the food itself. The notion seems outlandish, but it was prevalent in aboriginal societies during the mid-20th century. American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon called this phenomenon ‘voodoo death’, where people condemned to death by a shaman were so frightened that their bodies started to wither on their own until they died a few days later. Explaining the phenomenon, Cannon wrote in his paper on fatal terror: “It is the fatal power of the imagination working through unmitigated terror.” Today, this fatal power of imagination has become a living nightmare for children around the world. Especially refugee children who have left their homes with their parents to escape endless injustice, but find themselves homeless in a big, scary world.
Siblings Djeneta and Ibadeta are refugees living in Sweden. They are far away from the abomination they suffered in their home state Kosovo, but their battle to survive is far from over. A few years ago, their parents came to Sweden in search of a safe haven, as it was impossible for them to raise their young girls in Kosovo, where they were persecuted by the government on the basis of their ethnicity. The adolescents had already seen more aggression and violence than an average person would witness in a lifetime. When they came to Sweden, the girls were delighted, thinking that bad days were a thing of the past. But soon, the migration board rejected their request for asylum in Sweden and asked them to go back.
When the children heard the news about the deportation, it was a shock greater than anything they had experienced. The mere thought of leaving their peaceful life—with kind neighbours, good friends, and no one to rob them of their fundamental rights—paralysed their bodies. To this day, the siblings are living on tubes, under the care of home nurses and their parents. According to the doctors, the girls have lost their will to live, as they don’t see any reason to go on in a world that is so full of unfairness and cruelty.
There are hundreds of refugee children like Djeneta and Ibadeta who are diagnosed with the same illness—uppgivenhetssyndrom, also known as resignation syndrome. Children afflicted by this syndrome no longer have the will to live. The disorder stems from the trauma of deportation to their homeland, which is either a theatre of war, a terrorist territory, or a state where the government has disowned them because they are a minority. In the medical journal Acta Paediatrica, child psychiatrist Göran Bodegård describes children with resignation syndrome as “totally passive, immobile, lacking tonus, withdrawn, mute, unable to eat and drink, incontinent and not reacting to physical stimuli or pain”. It is difficult to imagine the amount of aggression or hostility these children must have witnessed; they would rather die than go back to the hell they escaped from.
While there is no dearth of compassion in human beings, it often seems like there is none.
Resignation syndrome is a condition observed in refugee children who have lost the will to live due to the trauma of deportation to their war-torn or hostile homeland.
Child abuse, including physical, sexual, and emotional maltreatment, further adds to the trauma experienced by refugee children, robbing them of their innocence, voice, and confidence.
Society can play a vital role by educating parents on child abuse prevention, offering support to families seeking asylum, and increasing empathy towards the plight of refugee children.
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