Millions of Afghan children will suffer crisis-level hunger by the end of 2024.
Arid landscape in Afghanistan. Unsplash. CC0
Afghanistan has had no shortage of crises so far this year. Frequent flooding in the north and west in May and severe drought in January have triggered a monumental inflow of humanitarian aid, but despite the world’s best efforts, it appears that the fallout from these events will be seriously damaging for the already impoverished and oppressed citizens for the rest of the year.
Studies by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an independent global hunger monitoring organization, suggest that around 12.4 million Afghan citizens will be faced with food insecurity between June and October of 2024. Of those affected, just over half are children. In addition, 2.4 million citizens will experience starvation at emergency levels; this categorization is just above outright famine.
A variety of causes have been listed for the crisis. Back in May, flooding devastated many northern towns, affecting 60,000 citizens and reducing farmland to fields of mud. Based on weather patterns, these floods are expected to continue throughout the year, preventing any recovery of the farmland and causing a major decrease in domestic food production.
Additionally, an unexpectedly warm and dry winter has led to a lasting drought across the southern and western parts of the country. Although rainfall has increased somewhat in recent months, the arrival of the La Nina weather pattern in the fall is expected to bring even more dry, warm days. Although some farmland is recovering thanks to the brief respite provided by El Nino, much of the land is about to be confronted with a second round of drought conditions, further cutting down food production.
The most prominent cause of food insecurity, however, is the ever-present and ever-controversial Taliban government. Local currency has taken an alarming plunge while food prices, thanks to scarcity caused by the aforementioned environmental catastrophes, continue to soar. The Taliban’s apparent lack of concern for Afghanistan’s economy suggests that there will be no serious action towards rectifying the crash. Economic aid from foreign countries helps somewhat to avert the biggest fallout from the crisis, but the problem is virtually unfixable without changes in the regime's policies.
Regardless of how it began, the food crisis in Afghanistan is only getting worse—and fast. The country is alarmingly unequipped to pull itself out of poverty and hunger; action by charities and foreign governments is helping, but more is needed to prevent the looming threat of starvation. Hundreds of thousands of families are actively struggling to find their next meals, and millions of children will soon be forced to endure near-famine levels of food insecurity.
How You Can Help
Organizations such as the World Food Programme and UN Crisis Relief are actively supplying food to communities most impacted by the crisis. Estimates show that around $600 million are needed to ease the burden across the entire country. Other groups, such as UNICEF, are specifically aiming to feed and protect the millions of starving children and their families. There is no way to fix Afghanistan’s economic and political crises from the outside, but these organizations have already helped to feed and house countless citizens facing down these disasters head-on.
Ryan Livingston
Ryan is a senior at The College of New Jersey, majoring in English and minoring in marketing. Since a young age, Ryan has been passionate about human rights and environmental action and uses his writing to educate wherever he can. He hopes to pursue a career in professional writing and spread his message even further.