UNITED NATIONS, Aug 04 (APP):The Afghanistan hunger crisis is spinning critically out of control as crippling funding shortages leave millions of vulnerable Afghans without life-saving aid, according to the United Nations. Nearly 14 million people are facing acute hunger, and a record 3.7 million children are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition, yet aid programmes can only reach a fraction of those in need, the World Food Programme (WFP) said. …
Afghanistan’s hunger crisis spinning out of control as millions left without food aid: UN
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 04 (APP):The Afghanistan hunger crisis is spinning critically out of control as crippling funding shortages leave millions of vulnerable Afghans without life-saving aid, according to the United Nations.
Nearly 14 million people are facing acute hunger, and a record 3.7 million children are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition, yet aid programmes can only reach a fraction of those in need, the World Food Programme (WFP) said.
In a new alert on Tuesday, the UN agency 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 crisis
Today, 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.
The 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.
Child 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 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.
The UN agency warned that Afghanistan’s nutrition crisis is spinning out of control. WFP’s operations for emergency food assistance and nutrition programmes are costed at about $900 million for 2026.
“We have not met needs in the first six months because we didn’t have money. And when you look at the next six-month window, this critical window, not just because of the current crisis, but also in the run up to winter, which is the real flashpoint of hunger, WFP still needs $500 million to address the acute food needs in the country,” Aylieff said.
