The United Nations children’s charity, UNICEF, has said that the agency in April treated more than 48,000 children, 56% of them girls, who were suffering from acute malnutrition across Afghanistan as many more lives hang in the balance.
UNICEF Afghanistan reported this in a series of tweets Wednesday indicating that this “live-saving contribution” worth €4 million was made possible by financial aid from the France Diplomat Mission in the European Union.
This UN Children Fund added that flexible funding from the Mission also helped screen children for signs of malnutrition which the agency called a “critical step in preventing undernutrition before it takes hold.”
According to UNICEF, 1.3 million children under 5 years old were screened in April.
The takeover in August 2021 drove millions into poverty and hunger as major foreign aid ceased and international sanctions resulting from the group’s bans on girls and women intensified the crisis.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that 20 million people in Afghanistan are at risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases due to acute food insecurity. Nearly 7 million children under the age of 5 remain malnourished.
