Unprecedented levels
“More people are suffering from hunger than ever before,” John Aylieff, Afghanistan country director for the World Food Program, told The Associated Press. He said 19 million people — nearly 40% of the population — would be facing acute hunger, “the life-threatening type of hunger,” in the next few months, reports BritPanorama.
Even more worrying is that acute malnutrition, which kills if left untreated, is spiraling.
“Acute malnutrition is at unprecedented levels already,” Aylieff said. “In the next year, 5.3 million women and children in this country will need treatment for acute malnutrition, the type of malnutrition which if not treated leads rather precipitously to death.”
That is 1.3 million more than in 2022, Aylieff said, when Afghanistan’s economy teetered on the brink of collapse after the U.S.-led coalition’s withdrawal and the Taliban’s seizure of power.
The vast majority are children, according to data in the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification issued Thursday. Children, whose bodies are still developing and therefore have higher nutritional needs, are most at risk when food runs scarce.
Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been buffeted by a myriad of overlapping crises in recent years.
The legacy of four decades of war is compounded by a yearlong closure of border crossings with Pakistan due to a simmering conflict, depriving Afghanistan of its main trade route. Added to that is the forcible return since 2023 of more than 5 million Afghan refugees from neighboring Iran and Pakistan who are putting pressure on limited resources; natural disasters such as drought, floods, and earthquakes; and the crisis in the Middle East.
