Kathmandu, December 11:

Conflict-hit children are traumatised and are in need of psychosocial counselling and psychotherapy, the Centre for Mental Health and Counselling (CMC-Nepal) said today, citing the report of a study that covered 1,378 conflict-families.

Among the children surveyed, 52 per cent were found to be suffering from anxiety and 29.0 per cent coping with bad dreams. The rest of the children were found to disobedient, coping with attention problems and irritability.

It found that 5.9 per cent of the children had lost both of their parents. “Fathers of 44.2 per cent of the children were killed, mostly by one of the parties to the conflict and in crossfires, whereas fathers of 4.6 per cent of the children surveyed were found to have died due to other reasons. Some fathers were found to have left their homes because of threats.