Doctors warn of suicides among hostages in hospital

MOSCOW doctors have identified over 140 hostages who are in urgent need of psychiatric care and have warned of the possibility of many suicides.

Already, one woman has committed suicide and ten people who doctors say are on the verge of suicide have arrived for special treatment at the Serbsky State Scientific Centre in Moscow - the central psychiatric hospital in Russia.

One former hostage committed suicide when she came back home from the stormed school after identifying her dead child.

Ten leading specialists from the Serbsky went to North Ossetia immediately after the hostage crisis to give psychological aid to those who survived the horror.

The psychiatrists are deeply concerned about the potential for a rash of suicides over time.

“It is not time for mass suicides yet,” senior psychiatrist Boris Kazakovtsev said. “An outbreak of suicides usually starts a month or two after an emergency situation ends.”

Of the ten brought to Moscow, five are boys from eight to 16 years of age who are kept in one room, a 16-year-old girl and her mother live in another room, while three women share the third room: two mothers and a teacher from the school.

Doctors have given the children toys, books and posters. There is a small kitchen in the house - women can cook for their children, if they wish so.

The young teacher, named Angela, lost her only child several years ago. When the woman saw the death of tens of children with her own eyes, she experienced a very strong stress. Specialists say that the woman’s previous depression returned, having increased ten-fold. The woman has a splinter under her skull’s skin.