Afghanistan's Agony

 About 9.6 million children in Afghanistan have been unable to secure food on a daily basis  Save the Children has said.

"Every single day our front-line health workers are treating children who are wasting away in front of our eyes because they’re only eating bread once a day – and those are the lucky ones,” said Save the Children’s director of advocacy, communications and media, Athena Rayburn. “Children in Afghanistan have never known a life without conflict and if action is not taken soon, they will not know a world without gnawing hunger and empty stomachs,” 

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.

Millions of dollars in international aid have dried up due to the sanctions and Biden’s decision to repurpose $3.5bn in Afghan assets as compensation to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Although 18.9 million children and adults were expected to need food aid for the latter half of this year, available funding for food aid could only provide support for 3.2 million people.

“Each day that passes without the funds needed sees more children lose their lives to preventable causes.” Rayburn added.

Nearly 10 million children going hungry in Afghanistan, says NGO | News | Al Jazeera