10 million children going hungry in Afghanistan

About 9.6 million children in Afghanistan have been unable to secure food on a daily basis due to a deepening economic crisis in the country, the impact of the Ukraine war, and continuing drought, Save the Children has said.

In a report published on Tuesday, the international NGO called for “immediate food assistance” to save lives in the short-term, adding however that aid alone was “not enough to tackle the country’s worst hunger crisis on record”.

“Despite a significant amount of food aid reaching families in recent months, 19.7 million children and adults, almost 50 percent of the population, are still going hungry and need urgent support to survive,” said the report.

According to the report, about 20,000 people were pushed into famine during the past two to three months alone.

Reflecting the situation of many Afghans, Maryam, a 26-year-old mother of five, from Faryab province, complained, “I can only borrow cash and buy them food, but mostly I don’t have sufficient food for them. Sometimes we have food to eat and some days we don’t.”