One million Afghan children could die if urgent actions not taken: UNICEF
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The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Afghanistan has warned that one million Afghan children could die from severe acute malnutrition if "urgent actions" are not taken. "Without urgent action, 1 million #children could die from severe acute malnutrition. @UNICEFAfg is providing high energy peanut paste to children to support their recovery," UNICEF Afghanistan tweeted.
"Having recently recovered from acute watery diarrhea, two years old Soria is back in hospital, this time suffering from edema and wasting. Her mother has been by her bedside for the past 2 weeks anxiously waiting for Soria to recover," UNICEF Afghanistan said in another tweet. Despite the rising numbers of children affected by malnutrition, the Ministry of Public Health said no malnutrition care centers are active in Afghanistan, Tolo News reported.
It further reported that according to the Ministry of Public Health, the number of children suffering from malnutrition is around 4.4. million in Afghanistan. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated drastically since the Taliban took control of Kabul last year in mid-August.
A combination of a suspension of foreign aid, the freezing of Afghan government assets, and international sanctions on the Taliban, have plunged the country, already suffering from high poverty levels, into a full-blown economic crisis.