Citation

Charlier P, Bou Abdallah F, Mostefai Dulac Y, Deo S, Jacqueline S, Brun L, Herve C. Ann. Dermatol. Venereol. 2017; 144(11): 696-699.

Vernacular Title

Cicatrices « palimpsestes » en contexte de torture (Darfour, Soudan).

Affiliation

Laboratoire d'éthique médicale et de médecine légale (EA4569), université Paris-Descartes, 45, rue des Saints-Pères, 75006 Paris, France; CASH & IPES, 403, avenue de la République, 92000 Nanterre, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Masson Editeur)

DOI

10.1016/j.annder.2017.06.003

PMID

28728860

Abstract

BACKGROUND: As a result of the current exponentially growing refugee population from the Middle-East and East Africa (Sudan, Darfur, Eritrea), clinicians (including forensic pathologists) are seeing atypical skin lesions, mainly of a traumatic nature, but in some cases associated with long-standing lesions related to ethnic practices.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: A case of torture sequelae is presented herein in a patient originally from Darfur (Sudan): cutaneous incisions were made on old scars several times using a knife.

DISCUSSION: The clinical presentation of scarification lesions and that of atypically healed wounds (presumably an effect of inflammation induced by the introduction of irritating foreign bodies such as sand, salt, etc.) are completely different: in all cases they indicate a relative timeframe of the facts, which the clinician should not overlook in reconstructing the patient's course and the injuries to which he has been subjected (hence the proposed designation of "palimpsest scar", in the sense that a palimpsest is a manuscript on a parchment that previously contained writing but has been scratched clean to be overwritten). Thus, a "palimpsest scar" constitutes a fresh scar on top of and hiding another (ritual) scar in a context of ethnic cleansing. The diagnostic and clinical significance comes from the importance of differentiating between ethnic-type lesions and those induced by physical violence and abuse in a context of war.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Language: fr

Keywords

Anthropologie médicale; Cicatrice; Forensic medicine; Medical anthropology; Mutilation; Médecine légale; Scar; Stigma; Stigmatisation