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Afghanistan, a young mother holds one of her 3-month-old twin baby girl

Zabi*, 29, with one of her twin daughters, 3 months. ɫƵAfghanistan has provided the family with a cash transfer which allowed them to get food and fuel for heating. Photo credit: Michal Przedlacki

Two-thirds of Afghan Children Need Help to Survive in 2022

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (Jan. 11, 2021)— Two in three—or more than 13 million—children in Afghanistan are in desperate need of life-saving aid, according to . That’s an increase of more than a third since the start of 2021 as the country descends into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

ɫƵis calling for the international community to step up and allocate funding to meet the US$4.4 billion target required in the  to help children survive the freezing winter and challenging year ahead.

Zabi*, 29, lives with her mother, father, and her three children. Two months ago, her husband died from diabetes while traveling to Iran, leaving them without a source of income. The family is struggling without enough money for food and Zabi’s* children chew bits of paper or rubble they find on the ground to suppress their hunger. ɫƵhas provided the family with a cash transfer so that Zabi* could get fuel for heating and food to feed the family. Zabi* said:

“When my husband was alive, he brought everything, from food to clothes. It is winter now, and I have no warm clothes for my children. We have no money, we have nothing. We do not have any fuel to warm the house. I hear my children cry at night because of the cold, they can’t sleep it’s so cold and we have no food to eat and no place to live that is our own. Once we receive the money [from Save the Children] we’ll buy milk and other things. It will be enough for one month and after that, we will face the same problems.”

Save the Children's acting Country Director in Afghanistan, Fiona McSheehy, said:

“The level of human suffering in Afghanistan has eclipsed that of any other humanitarian crisis in the world. The numbers are almost impossible to comprehend: Almost the entire country is expected to plunge into poverty, and more than half the population is facing critical levels of hunger.  

“But the numbers only tell part of the story. To know the true extent of this crisis, you need to see the painfully thin children being brought to our clinics with severe malnutrition, the desperate mothers going days without food so their starving children can eat, the families surviving for weeks on nothing but bread, huddling under blankets to keep warm because they can’t afford firewood. And this isn’t just the worst-off families—almost the entire population is now in a struggle to survive.”  

ճ reveal that 24.4 million people—more than half the country’s population—are in need of aid in 2022. An estimated 13.1 million of them are children, up from .

In another stark sign of the escalating crisis, the number of young children facing malnutrition has increased by 700,000, from  to 3.9 million. One million are heading for severe acute malnutrition, which is life-threatening without treatment.

ɫƵis distributing cash to 4,800 households during the first two weeks of January to ensure families can buy critical food to get them through winter. Thousands of sets of clothes, blankets, and other winter items are also being distributed. And in the coming months, cash will be given to more than 20,000 families so they can buy a heater and a three-month supply of wood, or a gas stove and gas for three months to help them cook.

*Name has been changed

Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Since our founding more than 100 years ago, we've been advocating for the rights of children worldwide. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming the future we share. Our results, financial statements and charity ratings reaffirm that ɫƵis a charity you can trust. Follow us on , , and .