By Dan Oakes
HUNDREDS of Dutch soldiers stationed in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province have suffered from mental health problems, raising serious concerns about Australian troops who fought alongside the Dutch.
Figures released by the Dutch defence ministry show that 1600 of the 16,000 troops who served in the province between 2006 and last year - when the Dutch troops pulled out - suffer problems such as alcoholism, rage, depression and flashbacks.
Paying the price: The Dutch military lost 25 troops during their deployment in Afghanistan.Credit: AFP
One Australian Defence Force source with experience in Afghanistan said the figure sounded ''about right'', and that it was probably significantly higher among engineers, who go ahead of other soldiers to search for roadside bombs and weapons caches.
''The issue of mental health and the effect of conflict on a person's mental well-being has been an issue for as long as we have had war. It is one of the realities of combat,'' the source said.
''People learn to deal with the situation and then when they come back to Australia our bodies have to re-learn what it is like to live in a peaceful, relatively risk-free society.''
A defence psychologist told Dutch media outlet RTL that the impact on the mental health of Dutch troops was ''enormous'', and that, worryingly, 20 per cent of returning soldiers refused the psychological counselling offered by the Dutch military.
Australian troops - both regular and special forces - served alongside the Dutch for four years in the mountainous southern province, long a Taliban stronghold. Twenty-nine Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and 201 wounded, while the Dutch lost 25 troops in their four-year deployment.
Concerns have already been raised about the effects of long, frequent deployments on special forces troops who spend days or weeks in hostile territory and fight frequent battles against insurgents.
The Age asked Defence four days ago whether it had similar information about Australian troops who had served in Afghanistan, and was told a report on mental health issues in the defence force would be released tomorrow.
Senior Defence officials told a Senate hearing yesterday the report would show Australian defence personnel commit suicide at a lower rate than the general community but think about it more often.
The director-general of defence health, Major-General Paul Alexander, said the rates of mood disorders, such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, were little different from those in the wider society. ''Our rates of suicide ideation - in other words, people who are thinking of committing suicide or self-harm within the organisation - are higher than the general community,'' General Alexander said.
A Defence source with combat experience said a real effort had been put into combating mental health problems. ''They spend a lot of money and have a lot of resources dedicated to mental health, including prevention, identification and treatment,'' he said.