‘This year over half a million hospitalized for wasting’
In Afghanistan de facto governed by the Taliban and devastated by decades of war, there are “3.7 million children suffering from wasting”, and “around one million” of them “are affected by severe acute malnutrition that threatens their lives”: the situation reported by Unicef in Afghanistan is a dramatic situation, a disturbing reality that affects the youngest and is already putting the country’s hospitals to the test.
Since the beginning of the year, “over half a million” children have been hospitalized for “moderate to high-risk deterioration and severe deterioration”, explains the head of Unicef in Afghanistan, Tajudeen Oyewale, in a press conference taken from the UN Fund’s website. And among the first things he underlines is that we are “already witnessing enormous pressure” on health structures and “in certain areas” of the south of the country there are hospitals with “three or four severely malnourished children for every bed”.
Unfortunately, the numbers are not improving: Unicef reveals that “cases of severe acute malnutrition with medical complications” went “from 6,000 in July 2025 to 8,000 in July 2026”, thus recording a surge “of a third” in the space of 12 months. And those most at risk are precisely the youngest: children under two years old represent “83% of cases of severe acute malnutrition”, while “almost 40% of children hospitalized for severe wasting and medical complications are infants less than six months old”.
In the background, there are the very serious violations of human rights by the Taliban regime, the periods of drought and flash floods, the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the forced repatriation of millions of Afghan citizens from Iran and Pakistan despite the very serious humanitarian crisis affecting the country.
“Precisely when needs are increasing, the services available to children are being reduced due to funding cuts” and “this year, due to a lack of resources, over one hundred centers treating children suffering from serious physical deterioration have closed”, says Unicef.
“Hundreds of other centers that provide nutritional support to children and pregnant or breastfeeding women in a state of malnutrition have also lost funding”, says Oyewale, explaining that the same UNICEF nutrition program in Afghanistan “requires around 180 million dollars” for 2026: but so far – he denounces – “it has only been 22% funded”.
