Afghanistan faces unprecedented food crisis, UN warns
Rome, Oct 25 (EFE).- More than half of Afghans, some 22.8 million people, face an acute food crisis, United Nations agencies warned Monday.
The World Food Programme said that some 3.2 million children aged five and under could suffer acute malnutrition from November.
“Hunger is rising and children are dying,” David Beasley, WFP Executive Director, warned. “We can’t feed people on promises – funding commitments must turn into hard cash, and the international community must come together to address this crisis, which is fast spinning out of control.”
The dire outlook comes as Afghanistan’s freezing-cold winter looms when many families rely exclusively on humanitarian aid to survive the harsh conditions.
“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises – if not the worst – and food security has all but collapsed,” Beasley added.
“This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance, and unless the economy can be resuscitated.”
The WFP said the report had identified the largest volume of “acutely food insecure people” ever recorded by the UN in ten years of related work in the country.
To meet the growing demand for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan the WFP will need to raise some $220 million every month.
“We are on a countdown to catastrophe and if we don’t act now, we will have a total disaster on our hands,” the WFP director warned.EFE
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