The World Food Programme can now reach only one in nine malnourished children in Afghanistan as a deepening hunger crisis leaves millions without adequate food, the UN agency said Tuesday.
Nearly half of all minors in the country were malnourished in the first quarter of 2026, while severe wasting among children has reached critical levels in a third of Afghanistan's provinces, according to UN data. John Aylieff, the WFP's Afghanistan director, told journalists from Kabul that the crisis is "spiralling out of control" and worsening daily. The agency has received just over one-tenth of the $900 million it budgeted for Afghanistan this year, and says it needs an additional $540 million over the next six months to contain acute food insecurity.
Drastic aid cuts, trade disruptions, forced deportations from neighbouring countries and climate disasters have driven the deterioration. Around six million Afghans have been forced back from neighbouring states in the past three years, straining resources in a country of more than 48 million people governed by the Taliban for three years.