UNICEF warns one million Afghan children face life-threatening malnutrition

One million children in Afghanistan are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition in a worsening new crisis hitting the country, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.

Across Afghanistan, 3.7 million children suffer from wasting, meaning they are acutely malnourished, the UN children's agency UNICEF said.

Among that number are "one million children who are suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition," UNICEF's Afghanistan country representative Tajudeen Oyewale said.

"If there is no treatment and we are not able to act fast, that one million number are at risk of dying," he told a media briefing in Geneva from Kabul.

Afghanistan has endured repeated periods of widespread hunger in recent decades as it has struggled through civil war and other crises.

An economic collapse followed the Taliban government's return to power after US-led forces withdrew in 2021.

He said that nearly 40% of children admitted to hospitals with severe wasting and medical complications were babies under the age of six months old.

Meanwhile children under two years old make up more than 80% of severe acute malnutrition cases in Afghanistan.

"Malnutrition plays a central role" in the growing numbers of deaths of very young children, Oyewale said.

He described a "worsening nutrition crisis" across the country, with more than half a million children admitted to hospital so far this year for high risk, moderate and severe wasting.

In July 2025, around 6,000 cases were recorded; in July this year, the numbers went above 8,000, a third higher.

"In parts of southern Afghanistan, some hospitals are now seeing three or four severe malnourished children for every available bed," he warned.