The mental toll of war
The Kabul Mental Health Hospital, a green-walled building on the outskirts of the city, is Afghanistan’s only facility for treating mental illness.
It has its work cut out for it. The war in Afghanistan has left many people psychologically damaged by their exposure to incessant conflict, in a country where the public health system has been wrecked by decades of fighting, and the very concept of mental illness is alien to many.
A patient looks out from his ward at the mental hospital, which has 60 beds for in-patients and another 40 in a separate facility for drug addicts.
An employee cleans the corridor of a women's ward.
A man eats his lunch as he sits beside his son, who is suffering from mental illness. Psychologists working at the Kabul mental hospital say children who have known nothing but fighting since the U.S.-led invasion more than a decade ago are especially vulnerable to mental problems.
Patients at the hospital receive treatment with drugs, counselling, group therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.
The hospital is run by the government in partnership with U.S.-based nonprofit group the International Medical Corps. The centre gets funding from the European Union.
Wrapped in a blanket, a patient huddles outside his ward.
One patient at the hospital dances in a passageway.
Another patient is seen through a hole in a gate as he sits inside his room.
