GENEVA: The United Nations has warned that Afghanistan’s child malnutrition crisis is rapidly worsening as severe reductions in humanitarian funding leave millions without life-saving assistance.
John Aylieff, the Afghanistan country director for the UN’s World Food Programme, described the situation as increasingly dire, saying preventable child deaths are rising while healthcare facilities struggle to cope with a growing number of severely malnourished children.
The country’s nutrition crisis “is spinning out of control”, he told reporters in Geneva.
“It’s a crisis which is getting worse by the day, and tragically one which we are unable to contain,” he said, speaking from Kabul.
According to Aylieff, child wasting the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition has reached critical levels in one-third of Afghanistan’s provinces. He attributed the worsening emergency to ongoing conflict, trade disruptions, the return of refugees from neighbouring countries, and sharp cuts to international aid.
He noted that Afghanistan experienced its largest annual increase in malnutrition cases last year, with conditions continuing to deteriorate throughout 2026.
“The number of children being rushed to health centres is soaring” but “too many of them are arriving too late to be saved”. Children under the age of two account for around 80 per cent of the most severe cases.
Aylieff said the WFP has enough funding to provide food assistance to only one in seven malnourished women and children this year.
“We are turning away six out of seven and we’re turning them away empty-handed, with absolutely nothing,” he said.
He added that the sounds of malnourished infants in Afghan health clinics reflect the scale of the humanitarian emergency.
“This crisis could eclipse all previous projections and condemn countless more children and mothers to preventable death,” he added.
