KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Saturday its goal was “to help all malnourished children and mothers,” after the UN warned that millions would experience acute malnutrition this year.
The World Food Programme’s Afghanistan director John Aylieff said this week that 5 million women and children would experience life-threatening malnutrition in a worsening crisis in the country of 40 million people.
The UN agency has said that nearly 4 million children would require treatment for malnutrition, a figure also supported by the UN-mandated Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. “These numbers are staggering,” said Aylieff.
The Afghan Public Health Ministry gave lower figures on Saturday, saying that there were “around 3 million children and mothers suffering from malnutrition.”
“About 1.3 million children are moderately malnourished, 700,000 suffer from acute malnutrition and 900,000 mothers are moderately to severely malnourished,” ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said.
