Afghanistan hunger crisis deepens as child malnutrition deaths mount amid aid cuts
UN and aid agencies warn that funding shortages and sanctions are driving a hunger emergency that is killing children at hospitals across the country
Afghanistan is facing an unprecedented hunger emergency, with health officials warning that millions of children are malnourished as international funding tightens and sanctions bite. The World Food Programme says more than three million Afghan children are at risk of malnutrition, a figure that has risen as aid flows have contracted and political restrictions complicate delivery of life-saving assistance. Food aid previously kept a lid on hunger for the country’s poorest families, but officials say that lid has begun to lift.
Along a dust-swept road near Herat, Ghulam Mohiddin and his wife Nazo showed the graves of their three young sons: Rahmat, Koatan and Faisal Ahmad, who died in the last two years after suffering from malnutrition. "Can you imagine how painful it's been for me to lose three children? One minute there's a baby in your arms, the next minute they are empty," Nazo said. "I hope every day that angels would somehow put my babies back in our home." Their words are echoed by relatives and neighbors in the Sheidaee settlement, where many families depend on irregular work and meager rations to survive.
Two-thirds of the graves at Sheidaee are for children, according to villagers who count the plots themselves. The graveyard is relatively new, estimated to be two to three years old, and is not exclusively a children’s site. The UN estimates that nearly half of Afghan children under five are stunted, a sign of long-term malnutrition that foreshadows lifelong health problems.
Hanifa Sayedi cradles her one-year-old son, Rafiullah, who can barely hold himself upright. "I took him to a clinic where they told me he’s malnourished, but I don’t have the money to keep taking him there," she said. Her family has two other children, and they survive on pieces of bread soaked in Afghan green tea. Some days they do not eat at all. She shows two strips of tablets she has bought to help her child sleep, saying, "I feel so guilty that my children are going hungry and I can’t do much. I feel suffocated and like I should kill my children and myself." Doctors caution that medications such as Lorazepam and Propanolol can be dangerous for young children, especially when used without medical supervision.
The World Food Programme’s country director, John Aylieff, said malnutrition and hunger are worsening after the start of the year. "We started the year with the highest increase in child malnutrition ever recorded in Afghanistan. Food assistance kept a lid in this country on hunger and malnutrition, particularly for the bottom five million who really can’t cope without international support. That lid has now been lifted. The soaring of the malnutrition is placing the lives of more than three million children in peril," he said.
The aid decline comes as the major donor, the United States, halted nearly all direct aid to Afghanistan earlier this year. WFP officials noted that eight or nine other donors who funded their programs in the last two years have also reduced or paused funding in 2024, with many responding to multiple global crises. Donors point to competing emergencies and to policy and access hurdles tied to the Taliban government. Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s head of the political office in Doha, told the BBC that sanctions and reduced international aid—not government policy—are the primary obstacles to relief. "Those who are facing malnutrition, those who are facing hunger, it’s because of sanctions, because of aid cuts by international organisations. It’s not because of the government. The government has expanded its assistance to the people and is doing what is in its capacity, but our budget is based on internal revenues, and we are facing sanctions," he said.
The UN and aid groups warn that the Taliban’s restrictions on Afghan women working for NGOs hinder the delivery of relief to vulnerable families. The prohibition, coupled with broader sanctions, has slowed the flow of international support and complicated the ability of humanitarian agencies to reach communities in need. The agency notes that the ban on women staff complicates ongoing operations and reduces the capacity of relief networks to reach households with children who are most at risk.
The crisis is compounded by drought that has reduced agricultural incomes across more than half of Afghanistan’s provinces, and by the forced return of more than two million Afghans from Iran and Pakistan, which has depressed remittance flows. In the Sheidaee settlement, families described a daily struggle to secure basic food as prices rise and crops fail.
In Badakhshan regional hospital in the northeast, the malnutrition emergency is in plain view. The ward for malnourished children held 26 patients in 12 beds. Three-month-old Sana, the youngest patient in the ward, arrived with malnutrition, acute diarrhea and a cleft lip. Her mother Zamira said she fears Sana may die, just as her first child did. "I’m scared this child might also meet the same fate. I’m tired of this life. It’s not worth living," she said. In the same ward, five-month-old Musleha has malnutrition and measles; her mother Karima says she is unable to feed her properly because they cannot afford nutritious food. The twins Mutehara and Maziyan also suffer from malnutrition and measles, and are underweight for their age. A nurse described the scene as a sobering reminder of the country’s health crisis.
A week after the BBC team visited, Sana, Musleha and Mutehara had died, underscoring the severity of the crisis. Health workers say the deaths highlight a pattern: when programs to treat malnutrition are cut, vulnerable children slide quickly from undernourishment to life-threatening conditions. WFP has reported an uptick in calls to its hotline from women expressing despair and sharing fears about feeding their children, a grim reminder of the mental health toll accompanying hunger.
"We simply cannot afford to feed them" is a refrain heard across clinics and households. WFP officials warn that humanitarian funding will run out in November unless new contributions are secured. At present, they are beginning to turn away malnourished women and children from health centers as stocks decline. They said a further funding injection is essential to avert a deeper collapse of malnutrition treatment programs across Afghanistan.
With winter approaching, aid workers warn that the humanitarian crisis could deteriorate further unless funding is replenished and access remains open for relief operations. The situation, they say, is a test of whether international donors and the Taliban government can align on life-saving assistance for Afghanistan’s most vulnerable populations, particularly its youngest children.