World Food Program Forced to Deny Aid to 75% of Starving Afghan Children

Severe funding shortages have forced the UN's World Food Program to turn away three out of four malnourished children in Afghanistan. The organization's budget has plummeted from $600 million to just $200 million as global crises compete for donor attention.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A small child struggles as medical staff place an oxygen mask over his face, the green strap wrapping around his hollow cheeks. The 2½-year-old boy has been battling for survival in a Kabul hospital for weeks.

At just 13 pounds — roughly half his healthy weight — severely undernourished Abu Bakar represents one of the fortunate few: his family managed to bring him to Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul for critical medical intervention.

However, countless other starving children cannot access such care.

“We have a catastrophic nutritional crisis on our hands with two-thirds of the country in a very serious or crisis level for acute malnutrition,” said John Aylieff, Afghanistan Country Director for the United Nations’ World Food Program. “This is the highest surge in malnutrition ever recorded in the country. And the lives of 4 million children are hanging in the balance.”

Following decades of warfare, Afghanistan has depended heavily on international assistance. However, when the Taliban seized control in 2021, direct foreign support ceased almost immediately, plunging millions deeper into destitution and starvation. The crisis has worsened due to economic collapse, prolonged drought, two major earthquakes in late 2025, and the deportation of 5.3 million Afghans primarily from Pakistan and Iran.

Currently, reduced funding to relief organizations, including suspended U.S. support for programs like the WFP’s food assistance, has eliminated crucial support for countless people.

“The aid cuts have been devastating,” Aylieff told The Associated Press. Regarding the 4 million severely malnourished children, “we are forced now to turn away three out of four of them because we simply don’t have the money.”

He described this situation as “unprecedented and I’ve never seen this in my more than 30-year-old career as a humanitarian.”

Among 17.4 million people experiencing severe hunger, the organization can currently assist only 2 million. Even those receiving help get reduced food portions.

International donors are stretching limited resources across multiple global emergencies, including Sudan’s famine and conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. The WFP’s Afghanistan budget reached $600 million in 2024 following “very generous” donor contributions, Aylieff noted.

That amount dropped by half last year, with expectations of receiving even less — approximately $200 million — this year. This funding proves insufficient to address hunger that “is spiraling out of control,” he explained.

Abu Bakar’s family experienced this aid reduction firsthand.

“We once received assistance from an organization that helped us a lot with food,” said his mother, Latifa, 36, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. However, that support ended three years ago, leaving them with nothing since.

Her construction worker husband has remained jobless for a year. Sometimes, she has absolutely nothing to feed her five sons.

“I am trying to provide food for my kids,” Latifa said, cradling her emaciated toddler in her arms. She doesn’t care if she doesn’t eat, she says. “I can control my hunger. I will handle it. But my child can’t.”

Rising hunger correlates with increased child deaths, Aylieff reported, with the WFP documenting over 500 child fatalities in recent months. He emphasized this figure represents “the tip of the iceberg” since many winter deaths occur in snow-blocked villages and go unreported.

“How many more Afghan children will die here before the world wakes up and realizes that that’s enough? Aylieff asked. “Before the world says, ‘OK, we’ve crossed a threshold, we are not willing to stand by anymore, and we’re coming now to help.’ How many? What is the number? I really don’t know.”

Sharara, 21, struggles to save her 6-month-old son Samir from joining those statistics.

Traveling from remote Badakhshan province, the mother of two moved between hospitals there and in Kunduz as medical staff worked to treat her critically ill infant, who suffers from cardiac issues and severe pneumonia worsened by malnutrition.

Finally reaching Kabul’s Ataturk Hospital malnutrition ward, Sharara, who also uses one name, remains deeply concerned.

“Doctors say his condition is currently critical,” she explained. During Samir’s 13-day hospitalization, he hasn’t gained any weight.

Afghanistan’s leadership acknowledges the nation’s hunger emergency and has increased malnutrition treatment centers from 800 to approximately 3,200, Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman informed the AP. During 2025, about 3 million malnourished children and mothers received treatment, he reported.

“Malnutrition is not a one-day problem. Malnutrition has been a problem in Afghanistan for decades due to poverty, war and other problems,” said Zaman, who is also a medical doctor.

Government officials have engaged with aid organizations, he noted, including those reducing funding or halting operations.

“Health is separate from politics. Providing health services is an inalienable right for all people,” Zaman said.

Women face particularly severe hunger impacts. Prohibited from most employment by the Taliban government’s strict women’s restrictions, widowed mothers are extremely vulnerable.

Many express such desperation they wish for death.

“As WFP, we’re getting more and more suicide calls from women because they just don’t know how to feed their children and they don’t know where to turn,” the WFP country director said.

WFP nutrition programs report a 30% surge in severely malnourished pregnant and nursing mothers, an increase Aylieff said nutrition experts had never witnessed before.

“These are the women to whom the world pledged unwavering solidarity in the aftermath of the takeover of the country in 2021. … Those same women are asking us, where is the solidarity of the international community?” Aylieff said.

“If I had one plea, it’s to not walk away from Afghan women who are now facing abject misery, hunger, malnutrition and watching their children die.”