Afghanistan faces hunger crisis as aid cuts force the WFP to turn away 3 in 4 children

When Abu Bakar was first hospitalized weeks ago, the 2½-year-old was severely malnourished; he weighed just 13 pounds — about half of what he should.

Yet, he is one of the lucky ones. His family got him to Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, where doctors provide lifesaving care.

However, many more malnourished children cannot get help.

"We have a catastrophic nutritional crisis on our hands with two-thirds of the country in a very serious or crisis level for acute malnutrition," said John Aylieff, Afghanistan Country Director for the United Nations' World Food Program. "This is the highest surge in malnutrition ever recorded in the country. And the lives of 4 million children are hanging in the balance."

Turned away

Devastated by four decades of conflict, Afghanistan relies on foreign aid. However, the Taliban takeover in 2021 saw direct foreign aid halted almost overnight, driving millions into poverty and hunger.

The situation is compounded by a moribund economy, a severe drought, two devastating earthquakes last year and the return of 5.3 million Afghans expelled mainly from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

Now, funding cuts to humanitarian organizations, including the halting of U.S. aid to programs such as the WFP's food distribution, have severed a lifeline for millions.

"The aid cuts have been devastating," Aylieff said. Of the 4 million acutely malnourished children, "we are forced now to turn away three out of four of them because we simply don't have the money."

This, he said, "is unprecedented and I've never seen this in my more than 30-year-old career as a humanitarian."

Of the 17.4 million people facing acute hunger, the organization can now only reach 2 million. Even for them, it is forced to provide less food.

No more food parcels

Donor countries' budgets are spread thin among humanitarian emergencies around the world, including famine in Sudan and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. In 2024, the WFP's budget in Afghanistan was $600 million after "very generous" donor contributions, Aylieff said.

Last year, the amount fell by half and the organization expects to receive even less — about $200 million — this year as a hunger problem "is spiraling out of control," he added.

Abu Bakar's family was among those who saw aid dry up.

"We once received assistance from an organization that helped us a lot with food," said his mother, Latifa, 36, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. That stopped three years ago.

Her husband, a construction worker, has been unemployed for a year. Now, at times, she has nothing to feed her five sons.

She doesn't care if she doesn't eat, she said. "I can control my hunger. I will handle it. But my child can't."

Children dying

Hunger is driving an increase in child mortality, Aylieff said, with the WFP logging more than 500 child deaths in recent months. The number, he noted, was "the tip of the iceberg," as many deaths during winter occur in villages blocked off by snow and are unregistered.

Afghanistan's government is well aware of the country's hunger problem, and has expanded its malnutrition treatment facilities from 800 to about 3,200, Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said. Last year, about 3 million malnourished children and mothers were treated, he added.

"Malnutrition is not a one-day problem. Malnutrition has been a problem in Afghanistan for decades due to poverty, war and other problems," said Zaman, who is also a medical doctor.

The government spoke with aid agencies, he said, including those that reduced funding or suspended projects.

"Health is separate from politics," Zaman said. "Providing health services is an inalienable right for all people." 

Mothers' burden

Women are especially affected by rising hunger. Banned from nearly all jobs by the Taliban government's draconian restrictions on women, widows with children are especially vulnerable.

Many are so desperate, they say they want to die.

"As WFP, we're getting more and more suicide calls from women," the WFP country director said, "because they just don't know how to feed their children and they don't know where to turn." 

WPF nutrition programs saw a 30% increase in the number of acutely malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women, an increase Aylieff said nobody in the nutrition community had seen before.

"If I had one plea," he said, "it's to not walk away from Afghan women who are now facing abject misery, hunger, malnutrition and watching their children die."