South Koreans who returned from six weeks of captivity in Afghanistan reunited with their loved ones then took their first steps toward recovery by entering a hospital for physical and mental treatment.
Doctors and psychiatrists said a return to the lives they lived before their ordeal in the desert of the Central Asian country requires prompt and effective therapy, patience from their relatives and understanding by the general public.
Taliban insurgents seized 23 members of a Christian church group at gunpoint as they traveled by bus to carry out volunteer aid work for two weeks. The militants killed two men in the group but later freed two women after South Korea agreed to direct negotiations. The remaining members of the group left Afghanistan on Friday.
Initial checkups showed the 19 former hostages who arrived back in South Korea on Sunday are in overall good condition, though exhausted due to their long-term captivity, said Cha Seung-gyun, the head of the hospital where they were admitted.
Cha said it takes up to five months for people kidnapped for about 15 days to resume their daily lives, adding that they will undergo intensive psychiatric treatment for the next two weeks.
The two females released last month have been getting treated at a military hospital since returning home, but they joined the rest of the group Sunday at the private hospital in Anyang, just south of Seoul.
Chae Jeong-ho, a psychiatrist at the medical school of the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, said the former captives may suffer from "a sense of survivors' guilt."
Chae, who is not involved in their treatment, said complicated emotional feelings resulting from an ordeal, including depression and anxiety, can be successfully treated with quick attention.
Separated into groups, the captives were regularly moved to new locations and subjected to death threats. One female hostage said she spent 20 days of the six-week captivity in a cellar and was constantly afraid.
The freed hostages and their family members held a tearful reunion at the hospital.
Most of the returnees initially looked pale, exhausted and tense. Later on, however, some began to appear more relaxed, engaging in quiet conversation with family members. Smiles became more common.
Relatives voiced concerns about the condition of the former hostages.
"She looks totally different," Kwak Ok-kang said of her 39-year-old daughter Yoo Jung-hwa. "She looks like she had a hard time mentally."
Kwak said her daughter didn't talk much, but rather "cried and cried. She looks so thin now."
Kang Ung-gu, a psychiatrist at Seoul National University Hospital, said most of the former captives are likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder due to painful memories of their captivity.
"They need to take antidepressants and get psychological therapy to overcome" it, Kang said.
Kang said the ex-hostages are likely to suffer from a sense of fear and have nightmares associated with the kidnappings, with public criticism directed at them over the saga possibly making things worse.
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