Many women and children living in the worst TC Yasa affected communities have been traumatized by the events of the Category 5 Tropical Cyclone last month.

Divisional Women Interest Officer Northern, Moira Vaáfou says they have several reported cases of trauma from the badly affected communities, mostly in Bua.

Vaáfou says these cases are being handled by Medical Services Pacific and Empower Pacific.

She says these two agencies have delivered intervention services and have also identified PTSD cases which they are revisiting.

“Mostly we have spoken to women and now that we have Child Services come in, we have also identified some children who have been traumatized and need counselling of which we depend on the experts to do. I would say for the most hit places, the story is the same of how they were traumatized.”

The Cyclone response operation is divided into nine clusters and the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation is leading the Social and Protection Cluster.

It is made up of UN organizations and partner agency Ministry of Health and organizations like Empower Pacific and Medical Services Pacific.

The main objective of the cluster is to provide immediate services, psycho-social support, medical attention and gender based violence intervention in the affected communities.