For the first time in decades, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) is unable to provide effective aid to millions of Afghans suffering from malnutrition, and the death toll, especially among children, is likely to rise this winter, the WFP said on Tuesday.
International aid to war-torn Afghanistan has dropped significantly since 2021, when US-led forces left the country and the Taliban regained power. The crisis was exacerbated by numerous natural disasters such as earthquakes.
– For the first time in decades, the WFP cannot launch a significant winter response and at the same time increase emergency and food support throughout the country – the UN agency said, adding that it needs more than 460 million dollars to deliver food aid to the six million most vulnerable Afghans.
– With child malnutrition already at the highest level in decades and an unprecedented decrease in (international) funding of agencies that provide basic services, access to treatment is increasingly difficult – the agency states.
The number of child deaths is likely to rise during Afghanistan’s freezing winter months when food is scarcest, it added.
The WFP estimates 17 million people are facing hunger, about three million more than last year, and the increase is partly caused by millions of Afghans deported from neighboring Iran and Pakistan as part of a migrant and refugee return programme.
Aid agencies have warned that Afghanistan lacks the infrastructure to accommodate the sudden influx of returnees.
– We only have 12 percent funding. It’s an obstacle – said Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP director of food security and nutrition analysis, at a press conference in Geneva.
He added that 3.7 million Afghan children are acutely malnourished, of which 1 million are severe cases.
(Vijesti.ba / FENA)
