Afghanistan Faces Catastrophic Food Insecurity: World Bank

Afghanistan is among one of the seven countries which face a catastrophic level of food crisis, the World Bank highlights in its report earlier in the week.

The seven food crisis-hit countries include Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen, according to the report.

The number of people experiencing food crises in these countries is the highest since the Global Report on Food Crises started reporting data in 2017.

Meanwhile, UNICEF also warned earlier in the week that it is facing a lack of critical food aid in Afghanistan due to a shortage of funding, amidst a widespread humanitarian crisis in the country.

Melanie Galvin, chief of nutrition at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in a video message on Twitter, said that thousands of vulnerable children could die from severe malnutrition in Afghanistan this year alone.

Galvin further added the global food organization faces an urgent funding gap of $21 million to buy essential supplies for treating malnutrition and training health workers around the country.

The organization also faces a shortage of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), she said.  RUTF is considered an essential ready-made food supplement that can cure children suffering from malnutrition.  

Years of conflict, poverty, and the broken and donation-based economy have forced ordinary people to suffer acute hunger and food shortage.

Afghanistan is home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than 28 million people, including over 15 million children, need humanitarian and protection assistance this year—a staggering increase of 4 million people over 2022, UNICEF highlighted in its report.

Since the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the economy has failed to recover, keeping millions of people on the verge of starvation.

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