In just over two months, mass shoot­ings have caused 13 deaths and sig­nif­i­cant phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al trau­ma in three com­mu­ni­ties.

The im­pact of gang war­fare has been bru­tal since March 16, when five peo­ple were killed in the first mass shoot­ing at Harpe Place, Port-of-Spain. Just a few weeks lat­er, four peo­ple were shot dead at Phase 1, Pow­der Mag­a­zine, Co­corite, and the lat­est in­ci­dent start­ed on Her­mitage Road in Gon­za­les and end­ed on the com­pound of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last Sun­day, re­sult­ing in four more lives lost.

A lot of fo­cus has been on the body count from these mass shoot­ings, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the need to track down and ar­rest the per­pe­tra­tors.

How­ev­er, there hasn’t been as much at­ten­tion on the needs of the vic­tims — those with phys­i­cal in­juries, the be­reaved fam­i­lies and the trau­ma­tised wit­ness­es.

Reper­cus­sions are be­ing felt at in­di­vid­ual, re­la­tion­al, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al and so­ci­etal lev­els, not on­ly in the com­mu­ni­ties where the shoot­ings oc­curred but across the coun­try. It is an ur­gent need with se­vere long-term con­se­quences that should not be ig­nored.

Parish priest Fr Matthew d’Here­aux touched on this im­por­tant is­sue when he led a Mass and Litur­gy of Lamen­ta­tion for the de­ceased at the St Mar­tin de Por­res RC Church in Gon­za­les on Wednes­day.

Hope­ful­ly, the au­thor­i­ties and cor­po­rate T&T paid at­ten­tion to what he said.

While Fr d’Here­aux made his ap­peal to faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, the state and the pri­vate sec­tor should al­so take on the task of putting mech­a­nisms in place to sup­port the vic­tims and sur­vivors of vi­o­lent crime.

It is dif­fi­cult to process grief, es­pe­cial­ly in cas­es of mur­der and vi­o­lence, where anger and fear are al­so part of the equa­tion.

Res­i­dents of Harpe Place, Pow­der Mag­a­zine and Gon­za­les, as well as every part of this coun­try that has been rocked by gang vi­o­lence, are strug­gling with shared hurt and dis­be­lief.

Pre­ven­tive in­ter­ven­tions are need­ed for all the af­fect­ed in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. Life as it used to be has been ex­ten­sive­ly dis­rupt­ed and there is a col­lec­tive sense of grief that might be be­yond the ca­pac­i­ty of what the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices can pro­vide.

How­ev­er, that should not be giv­en as an ex­cuse not to mo­bilise all that is avail­able to pro­vide in­di­vid­ual and group-based ther­a­peu­tic sup­port to help sur­vivors of these re­cent mass shoot­ings.

The op­tions are ei­ther to un­cov­er and work through the trau­ma of those ex­pe­ri­ences, or brace for the con­se­quences of un­treat­ed grief and trau­ma on men­tal health and well-be­ing, such as post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD), anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion.

Pro­fes­sion­al men­tal health sup­port coun­selling can help the res­i­dents in these com­mu­ni­ties, al­ready stig­ma­tised as crime hotspots, who reg­u­lar­ly com­plain about be­ing ne­glect­ed by the au­thor­i­ties.

They need sup­port as they come to terms with the vi­o­lence that has plagued their com­mu­ni­ties and search for ways to re­cov­er.

Wit­ness­ing com­mu­ni­ty vi­o­lence is par­tic­u­lar­ly trau­mat­ic for chil­dren whose sense of safe­ty has been shat­tered, mak­ing them prone to long-last­ing trau­ma. Pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ven­tions to tend to the men­tal and emo­tion­al needs of chil­dren in these three com­mu­ni­ties should be a pri­or­i­ty.

Over­all, there needs to be greater sen­si­tiv­i­ty and re­spect for all the vic­tims and sur­vivors of these mass shoot­ings.

Fr d’Here­aux’s ap­peal for re­cov­ery and heal­ing ser­vices should be heed­ed.