'Missing persons' rising to crisis

KEABETSWE NEWEL
Correspondent | Friday September 17, 2010 00:00

Death, especially, is dreaded by families when someone close to them goes missing.

Rakops Station Commander, Superintendent Morris Keaketse, said that often they are compelled to provide emotional support for people who approach them with missing persons cases.

'It is traumatising for people affected by the loss, it becomes a sickness so much that they would definitely begin mourning as if they are deceased,' Keaketse commented.

 Tatitown Station Commander, Superintendent Tebogo Madisa also admitted having handled cases of this nature. 'We handle such cases, people who lost children and loved ones, although they do not know where they disappeared to, are always in excessive pressure,' Madisa said.

Some of the people reported missing, according to Madisa, are found dead.  Some return back home.  Others disappear forever, but some are naughty school kids who runaway just for a weekend.

Madisa stressed the point that regardless of whether found or not, the thought of having a relative's child or any loved one brings emotional discourage.

'We have given many people time to carefully listen to them, sometimes we engage our social workers to help counsel people who report their loved ones missing,' Madisa said.  He even said that at times they even involve Psychiatrists.

Baengemali Puso, a 27-year-old mother, is one of the people who are traumatised because recently her three-year-old toddler mysteriously disappeared.

She said that her daughter was lying in the neighbourhood where she normally plays, but failed to return back home as she always did.

 This was a tragic incident that occurred on Tuesday 7 this month in Tutume.  In a panic she covered the neighbourhood in search of her three-year-old Atang 'Tumy Pumpy' Puso to no avail.

 Although she mobilised the entire neighbourhood for assistance, their efforts proved futile.  'I am depressed so much that I can not eat anything, when I try sleeping at night visions of my little girl are the only thing that invade my mind, I am so hurt hat I can not tell you how I feel,' Puso said, with a weak hoarse voice fading like a paraffin lamp going off. 

A similar blow also hit Xhumu Village where Mmakubu Razambo, aged 75, has also been missing since September 3 when she boarded a lift to Rakops to collect her food rations.  That was the last day the old lady was seen, until today nobody knows what happened to her.

 It is so tragic to mention that only a blanket belonging to Razambo was buried in the place of the old lady because she was never found.

Dr Phillip Opondo, a psychiatrist in the Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital Psychiatry Ward, revealed that people experiencing such losses become depressed.

Although he said he never had such a patient, he confirmed the depression and trauma caused by such loss.   'Some people are better at coping than others, but everyone will get depressed depending on the significance of the loss,' Opondo commented.

'People may end up isolating themselves from others, they also lose interest in things they use to like.  Sexual performance is also negatively affected,' added the psychiatrist.

 Opondo said it is common to experience sleepless nights and lack of appetite.

'Some people also blame themselves for losing their loved ones.  Someone might assume that wherever their child is, it is dead, they may see no reason to live and this leads to suicidal attempts,' revealed Opondo.  When people seem not to have been affected by the loss, they mostly experience 'anniversary syndrome' a sickness in which at the anniversary of the disappearance, the people affected by the loss will feel the very same depression and pain they felt on the day of loss, according to Opondo.

 The doctor said that although it is difficult to avoid, people affected by such loss must always seek help by approaching councillors.