Authorities in Sweden are attempting to solve a problem that appears unique to its child refugees – uppgivenhetssyndrom or “resignation syndrome”.
The condition causes healthy youngsters to deteriorate into a comatose-like state after learning of their impending deportation,
It is believed to only exist among the refugee population in the Scandinavian country, where it has been prevalent since the early part of this century.
In 2016, 60 children were diagnosed with the syndrome, which sees patients are rendered “totally passive, immobile, lacks tonus, withdrawn, mute, unable to eat and drink, incontinent and not reacting to physical stimuli or pain,” according to medical journal Acta Pædiatrica.
The children are left bedridden or have to be moved in wheelchairs and feeding must be done through a tube.
Tests which gained a response from people in comas did not work on the afflicted children, but other exercises showed they suffered no brain damage.
It was described by some doctors as “willed dying” and often occurred after families were denied asylum status and thrown into uncertainty.
A similar phenomenon was observed in Nazi concentration camps, the New Yorker reported, in prisoners who had effectively lost all hope and given up.
READ MORE: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-children-sweden-coma-like-states-families-deported-uppgivenhetssyndrom-resignation-syndrome-a7662126.html
