KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Afghanistan is facing a rapidly worsening hunger crisis, with children dying from severe malnutrition amid a sharp decline in humanitarian aid, the World Food Programme (WFP) said, warning that child mortality is expected to rise further in the coming months.
John Aylieff, the WFP’s country director for Afghanistan, said in an article titled “Afghanistan is starving and the world is looking away” published in the British magazine Prospect that his teams have been forced to turn away everyone seeking assistance at nutrition centers for the past three months because no food is available.
According to the WFP’s Afghanistan director, funding cuts, recent extreme weather events, the closure of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and tensions in the Middle East, which also disrupted the Strait of Hormuz, have further worsened the country’s already dire humanitarian situation.
Afghanistan’s WFP program is now only 12% funded, Aylieff said, adding that the United Kingdom recently cut its foreign aid budget by 39%, forcing the agency to suspend lifesaving initiatives, including its famine-prevention program.
“Children in Afghanistan are already dying as a result of aid cuts,” Aylieff wrote. “We are bracing ourselves for a further increase in child mortality in the coming months.”
“I find it unconscionable that the international community cannot find the money to—at the very least—feed acutely malnourished children who are on the brink of starving to death,” he added.
The funding crisis comes as Afghanistan faces multiple pressures, including severe drought, earthquakes, flash floods, economic decline and disruptions to humanitarian supply routes.
Aylieff said the closure of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the disruption of routes through the Strait of Hormuz following tensions in the Middle East have further complicated the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
He said WFP has been forced to transport aid through nine countries via Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, a route that can delay deliveries by up to three months. “During that time, of course, children were dying from malnutrition,” Aylieff wrote.
Aylieff also described the growing desperation among families unable to afford food. WFP’s complaints and concerns hotline receives about 140,000 calls annually, while emergency calls from women increased by 60% between June and December last year, he said.
In one case, Aylieff said, a woman who was skipping meals to feed her children was considering giving her 12-year-old daughter to a 40-year-old man in a forced marriage. In another case, a father reportedly sold one of his kidneys to buy food for his family.
Aylieff said WFP had not previously witnessed such a level of desperation.
The warning comes as Afghanistan continues to face one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Millions of people are struggling to meet basic needs amid prolonged economic hardship, recurring natural disasters, reduced international assistance and the return of large numbers of Afghans from neighboring countries.
Nearly 22 million people in Afghanistan require humanitarian assistance this year, according to the UN, with women and children among the most vulnerable.
Humanitarian agencies are meanwhile facing a major funding shortfall. The United Nations has appealed for $1.71 billion to meet Afghanistan’s humanitarian needs this year, but only about 26% had been funded as of early August, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Humanitarian agencies continue to call for sustained international funding, warning that ongoing shortages could further disrupt the delivery of food, healthcare, shelter and other essential assistance to millions of vulnerable people across Afghanistan.
