• Afghanistan, Borrell: "We have failed, stop EU development funds and help the people"

  • Afghanistan.

    Women who challenge the Taliban in Kabul

  • During Angelus, the pope prays for Afghanistan: "Cease the clamor of weapons"

  • Afghanistan, Guterres: "We cannot and must not abandon the population"

Share

19 August 2021 "The serious food crisis affecting Afghan children in a country hit by drought is likely to worsen seriously due to the suspension of aid, putting thousands of lives at risk". This is the alarm launched by Save the Children recalling that Afghanistan, even before the advance of the Taliban, was the second country globally for the number of people affected by the hunger and malnutrition emergency. 



According to estimates, half of the children under the age of 5 in the country are at risk of acute malnutrition by this year and will need specific treatments to survive. In June - the organization still remembers - a state of drought was officially declared in Afghanistan, for the second time in four years in a country already plunged into hunger and poverty. A June WFP (un) report noted 14 million people in Afghanistan - over a third of the population - affected by hunger and a shortage of funds to provide adequate assistance. Among them were about two million children dependent on food aid. 



Covid-19, traffic restrictions, the inability to work and rising food prices have done the rest, bringing the food crisis in urban areas to unprecedented levels. Since the beginning of June, more than 80,000 children in Afghanistan - according to UN data - have fled their homes due to the escalation of violence. "We have a duty to the Afghan people and the humanitarian work that must continue. Children desperately need access to essential services, including nutritional support in order to survive." Said Hassan Noor, Save the Children's regional director in Asia, adding: "the international community has an absolute obligation to guarantee their protection, their rights and their survival".



Save the children has been operating in Afghanistan since 1976 with life-saving interventions for children and their families across the country which it has now had to temporarily suspend. The organization has provided health, access to education and child protection, nutrition and livelihood services, reaching over 1.6 million Afghans in 2020 and aims to resume activities related to health, education and protection of non-children. as soon as it will be possible to do so safely.