Afghanistan's children are facing a deadly winter

Starving children in Afghanistan "They're really just fighting to survive" As of: November 2nd, 2026 • 4:07 p.m

The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is one of the largest crises in the world. Particularly affected: children. Now aid organizations like UNICEF are sounding the alarm. The number of acutely malnourished girls and boys is increasing.

It is an image that Shagufa Abdul will not forget: In August, the employee of the aid organization Save the Children visited a clinic in northern Afghanistan, which is also supported by the German federal government. There she saw an emaciated mother with her infant, who was also malnourished. Abdul reports that the mother spent four hours on the road with her child in her arms in 45 degree heat to reach the aid organization's clinic. There were probably no alternatives for the family.

Such cases are no longer an exception for the humanitarian worker who grew up in Stuttgart. Since this year she has been working for Save the Children in the Afghan capital Kabul. Five years after the Taliban came back to power, almost a third of the population has no reliable access to food. The full extent of the crisis is becoming visible every day in the aid organization's 70 clinics, reports Abdul. Millions of girls and boys are acutely malnourished and cannot absorb enough nutrients.

The World Food Program warns of a nutrition crisis that is "spinning out of control" - especially among children. more

Abdul says that a million of the children probably suffer from severe malnutrition: "These are small children between the ages of six months and five years who actually have to play at the moment, who have to develop, who have to eat healthily and at the moment they are really just fighting for survival," says the helper.

Two developments in particular are driving the catastrophe inexorably forward: On the one hand, millions of Afghans have been pushed back from the neighboring countries of Iran and Pakistan in recent years. On the other hand, international donor countries - including Germany - have significantly reduced funding.

The widespread stoppage of US aid is dramatically worsening the hunger crisis in Afghanistan. more

And so the situation is likely to worsen further with the start of winter. The number of people who don't know where their next meal is coming from is expected to rise to over 19 million, warned Olga Cherevko of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The situation is expected to become a catastrophic emergency for five million people by spring - Afghanistan will then be just one step away from famine, said the UN spokeswoman.

"We have to act before winter comes - not just when families have already exhausted all options," says Cherevko. “This also means providing food assistance to people in need, protecting livestock and productive assets, supporting farmers before crucial planting windows pass, and ensuring access to basic health, nutrition and water services.”

According to a UN report, it grew by 400 percent within a year. The reason: poverty. more

But according to Cherevko, the resources made available by the international community are not nearly enough to deal with the crisis. The situation is worrying, says Shagufa Abdul. Due to a lack of funding, Save the Children alone is at risk of closing 40 health facilities worldwide this year. The organization has been active in Afghanistan since 1976, where it operates, among other things, nutrition centers and mobile health teams in regions of Afghanistan where there is no other help.

There are now situations in which malnourished small children can no longer get food in the Save the Children clinic because the aid organization has been cut off from funding, says Abdul. She appeals: "If tomorrow the doctor slowly disappears or the clinic has to close, then the families have no other alternatives. That simply means that the child will then - to put it bluntly - die."

This topic in the program: tagesschau.de | More hunger, less help: Afghanistan's children face a deadly winter | 11/02/2026 | 1:00 p.m