Quetta: "My father has gone to Karachi and is bringing dolls for me."

Every night five-year-old Malaika waits for her father Mehmood Khan to come home from work before she finally falls asleep. She does not know that Mr Khan, who was a cameraman for Dawn TV, was one of over 70 people who died in the August 8 bomb attack at Civil Hospital Quetta.

She is not the only child struggling with the absence of a loved one. A month after the attack, the effected families have yet to come to terms with the trauma. As sorrow and grief prevails, many yearn for their loved ones in silence.

Aryan, son of Advocate Baz Muhammad Kakar, kisses his deceased father’s bed sheets as they still carry his scent. His mother frequently bursts into tears seeing the helplessness of her son.

Four-year-old Ahmed routinely wakes up in the night, crying for his late father Advocate Bashir Ahmed Zehri.

“Widows and grief-stricken mothers are passing sleepless nights,” says Balochistan High Court Bar Association President Abdul Ghani Khilji.

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Post-traumatic stress

Repeated incidents of bombings, targeted killings and kidnappings have a long-term impact on the people of Quetta. Especially after the August 8 carnage, the number of psychotherapy patients has increased.

Psychiatrists say there are more female patients than males. Many of these women are left to deal with their daily affairs alone.

Dr Ghulam Rasool says that families are likely to be experiencing post-traumatic stress and counselling is imperative, especially for children. When a child deals with the death of a parent, the emotional trauma can be devastating and have long-term consequences.

Dr Rasool adds, “Children are more likely to develop anxiety, mood disturbances or substance abuse if they do not get proper care [when dealing with such a loss].”

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The children are clearly struggling. “All his kids, particularly his eight-year-old son Arsalan, speak about him all the time," says Khalil Ahmed Mengal, a cousin of advocate Hafeezullah Mengal who has left behind a widow, a daughter and five sons.

Emotions run high when family members see children still waiting for their fathers. “It is very painful for me to look at Aryan,” says Habeeb Khan Kakar, a cousin of Aryan's father.

Surviving the loss

Dr Hazrat Ali Achakzai, an assistant professor in the psychology department at the Bolan Medical Complex Hospital has experienced the need for grief counselling firsthand. "I have been counselling my own family members after the murder of my brother". His younger brother Barrister Amanullah Achakzai, the principal at Law College Quetta was killed on June 8 this year.

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After every tragedy, there are five stages for victims including denial, aggression, bargaining, depression and acceptance and desensitisation techniques. For this process to start, Dr Achakzai encourages the victims' families to inform their children that their fathers are no longer with them. He tells the mothers that if the young ones find out the information elsewhere, it can make the situation worse.

This is indeed a very real possibility. “Whenever the children go out of their homes, other children in the neighbourhood tell them that their Papa has died,” says a family member of Naseer Kakar, another victim of the attack. “They then pose this painful question to their mothers back home." Most mothers have thus far continued to deny this.

How the news is broken to the children is of utmost importance, stress psychiatrists. Despite this piece of advice, mothers wonder how they can possibly make their children make sense of the fact that not only are their fathers not coming home bearing gifts, they’re not coming back home at all.