The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that an estimated 100,000 individuals in Afghanistan are currently grappling with limited or non-existent access to “basic health and nutrition services.”
OCHA has sounded a dire warning about the severe funding shortfalls experienced in the early part of 2023.
OCHA revealed that 36,600 children under the age of five have been deprived of essential nutritional support programs in prioritized provinces.
The UN agency went on to emphasize the impending closure of 173 mobile nutrition and health centers, which will adversely impact as many as 70,200 children under the age of five.
Furthermore, OCHA raised a red flag concerning the exclusion of 1.8 million individuals from critical nutrition services, with a staggering 944,000 of them being children under five suffering from Moderate Acute Malnutrition, and an additional 521,934 children under five battling Severe Acute Malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme in Afghanistan (WFP) also utilized its X platform (formerly known as Twitter) to draw attention to the fact that one million mothers and children will no longer receive specialized nutrition support for the treatment and prevention of malnutrition.
Medical experts are urgently appealing to the international community to sustain their assistance to Afghanistan, given the nation’s ongoing humanitarian crisis since the fall of the previous government.
In a video message shared by WFP Afghanistan on its X platform, Nutrition Specialist Bilqisa underscored the plight of impoverished families and their children who are grappling with malnutrition, with a particular focus on the situation in Nangarhar province.
