KABUL: The World Food Programme has warned that children in Afghanistan are dying at an increasing rate as food shortages crisis deepen in the country due to the closure of the Pak-Afghan border.
In a statement released from Kabul, WFP’s Country Director for Afghanistan, John Aylieff, said the situation has reached a breaking point. Budget cuts have forced the shutdown of humanitarian programs, and without urgent funding, more children will not survive.
Officials at the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs said the crisis is now visible in hospitals across the country. Spokesperson Oulga Cheriyuko reported that in more than three-quarters of Afghanistan’s provinces, severe malnutrition among children has worsened this year.
Clinics are seeing children arrive in critical condition, and many are dying before they can even be treated. The impact of funding cuts is already clear. Last year, a shortfall in donations forced 142 health centres to close. The WFP estimates that more than 13,000 children lost access to treatment for malnutrition as a result.
For 2026, the agency projects that about 3.7 million Afghan children will suffer from severe food shortages. Another 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women will also go hungry.
Supplies have been made worse by events outside Afghanistan’s borders. Fighting in the Middle East and the months-long closure of the Pakistan border disrupted the flow of food into the country.
Aid workers say nearly one million women and children went without basic nutritional support for five months because of the delays. The United Nations is now calling on donors to release emergency funds immediately, warning that without immediate intervention, the number of child deaths will continue to climb.
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