Malnutrition rates at record high in Afghanistan, warns UN food agency
A World Food Program (WFP) official says malnutrition rates in Afghanistan are at record highs as half of the population struggles with severe hunger amid the deteriorating economic situation fueled by Western sanctions.
Philipe Kropf, a spokesman for the UN food agency, during his visit to the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday warned of the humanitarian disaster.
“Half of Afghanistan endures severe hunger throughout the year, regardless of the season, and malnutrition rates are at a record high for Afghanistan,” the official said. “There are seven million children (under the age of 5) and mothers who are malnourished, in a country with a population of 40 million.”
Afghans are not starving to death, he asserted, but they have no resources left to stave off the humanitarian crisis.
According to the WFP, almost 19 million Afghans, roughly more than half of the country's population, including five million children and pregnant and lactating women, are facing critical levels of hunger.
The food agency said at least 3.9 million children in the country are already facing acute malnutrition, with nine out of 10 Afghans not eating enough.
“There is not even enough water to drink in our area. The wells have dried up. There is no food, and no one is employed," the WFP quoted a grandmother, Guldana, who heads a 10-person household in the west of Kabul.
Roughly two-thirds of the population, or 28.3 million people, are projected to need humanitarian assistance in 2023 — nearly four million more than last year, according to the WFP.
People in war-ravaged Afghanistan have been tormented by grinding poverty and hunger for decades, but since the botched exit of the US-ledinternational forces and the Taliban's sweeping takeover, the country has been teetering on the brink of a major humanitarian catastrophe.
Last year, a top official of the UN food agency termed it the "worst humanitarian crisis on earth" while a senior executive of the UN Development Programme described it as the worst humanitarian disaster he has "ever seen".
MG
