Migrant shelters try to help traumatized assault survivors
Growing numbers of migrants suffer violence that amounts to torture on their journeys
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Since he began volunteering two months ago for weekend shifts at a clinic in one of this border city's largest shelters, Dr. Brian Elmore has treated about 100 migrants for respiratory viruses and a handful of more serious emergencies.
But it’s a problem he hasn’t yet managed to address that worries him the most – the worsening trauma that so many migrants carry after long journeys north that often involve witnessing murders and suffering from kidnappings and sexual assault.
“Most of our patients have symptoms of PTSD — I want to initiate a screening for every patient,” said Elmore, an emergency medicine doctor, at Clinica Hope. It was opened this fall by the Catholic nonprofit Hope Border Institute with help from Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, which borders Juarez.
Doctors, social workers, shelter directors, clergy and law enforcement say growing numbers of migrants suffer violence that amounts to torture and are arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border in desperate need of trauma-informed medical and mental health treatment.
