The United Nation’s World Food Program has said that millions of Afghans, including children, could die of starvation unless urgent action is taken to pull Afghanistan back from the brink of collapse.
Calling for Afghan frozen funds to be freed for humanitarian efforts, the World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley said that 22.8 million people were facing acute food insecurity and “marching to starvation” compared with 14 million just two months ago. The number makes up for more than half of Afghanistan’s 39 million population.
Talking to global media in Dubai, Beasley said, “Children are going to die. People are going to starve. Things are going to get a lot worse.”
The WFP chief said, “I don’t know how you don’t have millions of people, and especially children, dying at the rate we are going with the lack of funding and the collapsing of the economy.”
“What we are predicting is coming true much faster than we anticipated. Kabul fell faster than anybody anticipated and the economy is falling faster than that,” Beasley said.
He said that dollars earmarked for development assistance should be repurposed for humanitarian aid, which some nations have already done, or frozen funds be channelled through the agency.
“You’ve got to unfreeze these funds so people can survive.”
Afghanistan suddenly plunged into crisis in August after Taliban fighters drove out a Western-backed government. The Taliban takeover prompted international donors to hold back billions of dollars in assistance for the aid-dependent economy.
The food crisis, exacerbated by climate change, was dire in Afghanistan even before the takeover by the Taliban, whose new administration has been blocked from accessing assets held overseas as nations grapple with how to deal with the group.
Afghan winters will make matters worse
The UN food agency needs up to $220m a month to partially feed the nearly 23 million vulnerable people as cruel Afghan winter approaches.
Many Afghans are selling possessions to buy food with the Taliban unable to pay wages to civil servants, and urban communities are facing food insecurity on levels similar to rural areas for the first time.
WFP chief Beasley said that the UN agency had tapped its own resources to help cover food aid through to December after some donors failed to meet pledges. He added that with government appropriations already out, funds may have to be redirected from aid efforts in other countries.
Aid groups are urging countries, concerned about human rights under the Taliban, to engage with the new rulers to prevent a collapse they say could trigger a migration crisis similar to the 2015 exodus from Syria that shook Europe.
Listing off several humanitarian crises in the Middle East, Africa, and Central America, Beasley said, “I don’t think the leaders in the world realise what is coming their way.”
