Publish dateWednesday 29 January 2025 - 21:23
Story Code : 306181
Aid halt leaves millions starving in country/OCHA: Number of malnourished children will reach 3.5 million
While the World Food Program has expressed concern over the suspension of aid to Afghanistan, warning that it has left millions of people hungry; OCHA also said in a report that the number of malnourished children in Afghanistan could reach 3.5 million.
Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - KABUL: The World Food Program (WFP) director in Afghanistan says the suspension of US aid and cuts in international funding have left millions of people in Afghanistan facing "severe hunger".
 
Hsiao-Wei Li told Reuters that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan remains critical.
 
"Any possible reduction in aid to Afghanistan is worrying," he added. The level of needs here is very high. I hope the decisions take into account the needs of the people.”
 
Despite the relative improvement in reducing food insecurity, about a third of Afghanistan's population (about 15 million people) still faces severe hunger, the agency said.
 
This figure is down from the peak of the crisis in 2021, when 23 million people were affected, but still represents a serious humanitarian crisis.
 
Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that by 2025, the number of malnourished children under the age of five in Afghanistan will rise to 3.5 million.
 
In the past five years, three million children in the country have suffered from acute malnutrition.
 
In a statement released on Tuesday, OCHA called on the international community to help provide nutrition to infants and mothers in Afghanistan by increasing humanitarian support.
 
The office stressed that such support can provide a healthy diet and daily necessities for families.
 
UN statistics show that widespread poverty and hunger in Afghanistan, especially among children and women, are the main factors in increasing malnutrition. While the World Food Program said last year that about four million children and breastfeeding mothers suffer from malnutrition, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that 2.9 million children are acutely malnourished.
 
OCHA has previously said that by 2025, about 22.9 million people in Afghanistan will need humanitarian assistance.
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