KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), with financial assistance from the King Salman Humanitarian and Relief Center (KSrelief), has treated over 17,000 children for severe acute malnutrition in southern Kandahar province in the past year.
In a statement on Monday, July 22, IsDB announced that, with operational support from UNICEF, it distributed approximately 16,000 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to these children, at a financial cost of $953,301.
According to the statement, the project was established to provide lifesaving nutrition services to vulnerable children aged six months to five years who were suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
“From May 2023 until May this year, this RUTF successfully reached 17,543 children: 9,940 girls and 7,603 boys,” part of IsDB statement reads. “During the most recent four-month period from January to May 2024, just under 7,480 RUTF cartons fed 5,848 malnourished children – 3,274 girls and 2,574 boys,” it added.
Following the collapse of the Western-backed republic government and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy collapsed, plunging the landlocked country into its worst humanitarian crisis.
Additionally, the country has been grappling with numerous natural disasters such as earthquakes, heavy rains, flooding, and landslides in recent times, which, in addition to human cost, cause significant financial losses for the already impoverished population.
Previously, Save the Children reported that over 6 million children in Afghanistan—about six out of ten—will experience crisis or emergency levels of hunger this year. The agency also projected that nearly 3 million children under the age of five in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2024.
Earlier this month, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that it has treated approximately 234,200 children for severe acute malnutrition across Afghanistan since January 2024.
The UN agency said that in May, out of 1,198,823 children screened for wasting, 56,017 were admitted for treatment, with over half being girls and around 3,449 in severe condition.