(Adnkronos) – In Afghanistan, about one in five children could face critical levels of hunger before October due to funding cuts that reduce the amount of food aid available to families. This is the alarm raised by Save the Children, the international organization that has been fighting for over 100 years to save children at risk and guarantee them a future. According to new research from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – the leading international authority on the severity of food crises – nearly five million children, or about 20% of children in Afghanistan, are facing levels of “acute food crisis” or “emergency”.
Although the number of people facing food shortages is expected to improve this year, Afghanistan is still experiencing very high numbers, the organization notes. Funding for food assistance has been cut by 40% and the average number of people receiving aid until October 2025 has been reduced from 14% to 1% of the population. In the country, about 420 health facilities have been closed due to the suspension or closure of development projects, meaning that about three million people no longer have access to basic health care. Before the funding cuts, more than 14 million people already had limited access to health care.
Save the Children has lost funding for 14 health facilities in northern and eastern Afghanistan, but is using other short-term funding to keep them open. The loss of these 14 clinics would mean that nearly 7,000 children each month could not be screened for acute malnutrition and more than 27,000 people – including about 13,000 children – would lose access to health care in their villages, according to the organization’s estimates.
Dr. Hashim works in one of the 14 clinics and his facility treats about 200 children for acute malnutrition. The nearest alternative health facility is an hour and twenty minutes drive away and he fears that without his clinic, families will only resort to medical care when their children are seriously ill. “In these villages, the economic condition of the population, to whom Save the Children provides services, is very poor. The only source of income is agriculture. Due to the drought, they cannot afford to buy syrup, so how can they afford to treat malnutrition, which involves expensive treatments because of the distance from the nearest clinic?”.
Jamila brought her 11-month-old daughter Karima to the clinic, where she was treated for acute malnutrition. “If my daughter gets sick and if this clinic closes, it will be very difficult for us until we find financial support. If we don’t have money we can’t do anything and the child will have to stay home and suffer,” explains Jamila.
Save the Children treated more than 25,000 children for malnutrition in Afghanistan in 2024. It is estimated that nearly 3.5 million children aged 6 to 59 months will face acute malnutrition in the country between June 2024 and May 2025, including nearly 870,000 cases of severe acute malnutrition.
“Hunger and malnutrition are silent emergencies in Afghanistan, but they are preventable,” said Samira Sayed Rahman, Save the Children’s advocacy director in Afghanistan. “When funds are cut, it’s not just numbers on a spreadsheet. It means that families who relied on food aid will be left with nothing, that mothers have to choose between buying bread or taking a sick child to the doctor. No parent should ever have to face this choice. At Save the Children we have redirected our limited resources to ensure that 14 health clinics continue to operate after the funding cuts, because children’s lives depend on it. But this is a fallback, it is not the solution. We are doing what we can, but we cannot do it alone. We cannot look away. We cannot abandon children. The international community must act. We need sustained investment in the humanitarian response, not only to meet today’s needs, but to protect the future of children.”
Save the Children has been supporting communities and protecting children’s rights across Afghanistan since 1976, including during periods of conflict and natural disasters, running programs in 10 provinces and working with partners in another 11 provinces.
