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| Civic activists and local residents opposing the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense hold a news conference in front of a community center in Gimcheon, about 230 kilometers southeast of Seoul, ultimately crippling the defense ministry's scheduled briefing session there on the outcome of its evaluation of the U.S. missile defense system's environmental influence on local villages in Seongju, about 220 kilometers south of Seoul, March 2. Yonhap |
Residents living near a military base hosting an advanced U.S. missile defense system in southeastern Korea are showing high levels of mental health instability, the state human rights watchdog said Wednesday, calling for swift government countermeasures.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) said it has raised the need for the government to devise measures to support the mental health of the residents of Soseong-ri village, located adjacent to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery base in Seongju, 214 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
The THAAD deployment was approved in April 2017 for a former golf course in Seongju, triggering fierce protests from some local residents and anti-war activists.
The NHRCK said it conducted a basic mental health survey of 10 Soseong-ri residents between June and August last year and all of them showed a high level of instability. Seven people exhibited symptoms of depression, with five of them showing severe levels of depression, it argued.
Moreover, nine out of the 10 were on the verge of developing post-traumatic stress disorder and had difficulty sleeping due to the symptoms, the agency noted.
"The sustained circumstances experienced by the village residents in the process of anti-THAAD protests that began in July 2016 appear to have negatively affected their mental health," it said.
The NHRCK said it has delivered its opinions to the defense minister, the governor and police chief of North Gyeongsang Province, to which Seongju belongs, and the Sejongju county head late last month.
But the agency added that it has dismissed a petition from some Seongju residents and civic activists against police crackdowns on anti-THAAD protesters, saying the police's interventions in their protest rallies cannot be seen as unjust from the standpoint of national security. (Yonhap)
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