Afghanistan: 3.7 million young lives at risk of malnutrition, UNICEF warns — UN News

Some 3.7 million children under five in Afghanistan are at heightened risk of malnutrition due to food insecurity, poor diets and inadequate access to basic services as the peak season for life-threatening wasting looms. The warning comes in a new report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), published on Sunday, which said that child food and nutrition insecurity is among the main drivers of undernutrition in the country. Wasting is the most immediate, visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition, and is caused by recent food deprivation, illness, or both. Children suffering from the condition are too thin for their height and their weak immune systems leave them vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death. The report, Too Little, Too Late: The Diet Crisis Facing Young Children in Afghanistan, was released as the country enters a peak wasting season from July to September. Recent data shows it’s worsened across 26 out of 34 provinces compared with 2025, indicating an early and deepening crisis. For the first time at this scale in Afghanistan, UNICEF measured child malnutrition alongside the lived experience of food and nutrition insecurity among the same group of children across all provinces. The new findings aim to help identify risk earlier, before children become severely malnourished and require urgent treatment. The study points to early warning signs such as…