"The global state of affairs affects children as individuals. If parents in Iraq don't have the ability to protect their children, to stop this violence, then it can come to anybody," Sevil Bremer, psychologist at the Save the Children crisis centre in Stockholm, told AFP.

The Stockholm branch of Save the Children, a global nonprofit child-assistance organization, first set up an ad hoc hotline for children after September 11, 2001, and decided to repeat the experience as soon as fighting erupted in Iraq three weeks ago.

Dozens of phone conversations, each lasting anywhere from three to 30 minutes, make it clear that children see the fighting in Iraq as a real, immediate threat to their safety.

"Is there going to be war in Sweden?," an 11-year-old girl asked the therapist manning the hotline.

"Is this the Third World War?," wondered another.

"Am I threatened? Is my family safe?," said a third.

Some questions are easy to answer, like the one inquiring about the safety of friends in New York, or another about family members living in Brazil -- even though psychologists say they reveal how globally children perceive the threat.

But others are trickier: "Why can't Saddam and Bush go out and fight with each other? Why do they have to involve so many people?," asked one boy. And a 12-year-old girl inquired how many Iraqi children had been killed, and how many more would die.

"Of course we don't have all the answers," says Bremer. "But the important thing is to talk about things, which in itself counterbalances the war, where talking has been replaced by fighting. Children are puzzled that we say that you can solve problems by talking, but then grown-ups don't follow their own advice."

Save the Children also gets queries from parents or teachers needing advice on how to deal with the fears of youngsters.

Invariably, the psychologists tell them that the structure surrounding a child should remain as stable as possible.

"Continue with your routines, continue with your day, and your activities. The structures give security. If you break that, then you are showing the child that the situation is extremely dangerous. And always give the children opportunities to talk. There should be no such thing as a stupid question," Bremer said.

While short telephone conversations go a long way towards reassuring ordinary children, they do little for children traumatized by direct experience of war.

Like one eight-year-old Iraqi girl who moved to Sweden after witnessing bombings in the Iraqi no-fly zone, and who has recently begun wetting her bed again and screams at the sight of any aircraft in the sky.

Or an Iraqi teenager who saw a relative blown to bits by an American bomb in the first Gulf war, and relives the scene every time footage of the current conflict is shown on television.

Both are getting long-term therapy to help them to somehow live normal lives.

Despite signs that the war may be ending soon, Save the Children will keep the hotline open, as children's questions are unlikely to dry up any time soon.

"How many children have died? What happens to the wounded? Is there enough medicine? What if Saddam is not found? Those are the questions we expect to get now," said Bremer, who added that one child had wanted to know "whether Syria will be next".

SPACE.WIRE