Afghanistan hunger crisis intensifies as millions left without food aid
Key points14 million Afghans face acute hunger, with only one in nine receiving WFP food assistance.Child malnutrition has reached record levels in 12 provinces, with children under two hardest hit.Funding shortages have forced WFP to scale back lifesaving nutrition programmes nationwide.The agency needs $500 million before winter to avert a worsening humanitarian crisis.In a new alert on Tuesday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that one in three Afghans is now in the grip of acute food insecurity and that it lacks the resources to contain the deepening crisisToday, 12 provinces have now reached critical levels of acute child malnutrition, the highest number ever recorded.
Conflict, widespread unemployment, soaring food prices, shrinking humanitarian funding and disruption to supply routes are fuelling the crisis, WFP said. Forced returnsThe return of six million Afghans pushed back mainly from Pakistan and Iran since September 2023, has increased the strain on the country’s already fragile economy. “In the past three years, close to six million Afghans have been forcibly expelled from neighbouring countries,” said John Aylieff, WFP Country Director for Afghanistan. Briefing journalists in Geneva from Kabul, he explained that there are “simply not enough jobs to sustain” the returnees. “Conflict with Pakistan and the Middle East crisis have created trade disruptions, which have pushed up the price of staple foods by 20 to 30 per cent...The poor are being priced out of the market,” he explained. Because of crippling funding cuts, WFP has been able to feed only one in nine of the 14 million people now acutely hungry in Afghanistan.And as funding shortfalls deepen, lifesaving nutrition programs are being scaled back, just as needs are peaking.Most vulnerable infantsChild wasting - the deadliest form of malnutrition - has reached critical levels in one-third of the country's provinces. “The number of children being rushed to health centres is soaring and we're seeing this visibly. Eighty per cent of the worst cases are children under two years of age and NGOs report that too many of them are arriving too late to be saved,” warned Mr. Aylieff.Shrinking humanitarian funding means that “millions of acutely malnourished Afghan children are being turned away without assistance at the very moment when their lives are at risk,” leading to “deaths, which of course are fully preventable”, he added.During a recent visit to the province of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, WFP staff met Farida, a mother of three whose story reflects the plight of many of the country's poorest families. Her husband, an elderly street vendor, earns less than a dollar a day, leaving the family with no chance of affording nutritious food, healthcare, or other basic necessities.
