As the food crisis deepened under the Taliban Afghans sold children for survival
The Canada-based think tank IFFRAS reports that 95 percent of Afghans do not have enough to eat, while half the country’s population is expected to experience severe hunger as winter sets in early November.
With each passing day, the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating under the new Taliban regime, which does not have the funds to procure food and other necessities.
According to the Canada-based think tank International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS), severe shortages of funds and unprecedented rise in food prices have left many Afghans hungry and some forced to sell their children to survive.
“There are reports that 95 percent of Afghans do not have enough to eat when half of the population is expected to experience severe hunger as winter begins in early November,” IFFRAS said.
More than half of Afghanistan’s population – a record 22.8 million people – will face severe food insecurity from November, a UN aid agency said Monday.
This is according to a new report released by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) of the Food Security and Agriculture Cluster of Afghanistan, co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations World Food Program. WFP).
A WFP release states that the combined effects of drought, conflict, Kovid-19 and the economic crisis have severely affected lives, livelihoods and access to human food.
The report’s findings come at a time of severe winter in Afghanistan, which threatens to cut off areas of the country where families desperately rely on humanitarian aid to survive the frozen winter months.
The IPC report found that more than one in two Afghans will face severe food insecurity during the peak season from November 2021 to 2022, requiring urgent humanitarian intervention to meet basic food needs, protect livelihoods and prevent humanitarian catastrophe.
The report further states that this is the record for the highest number of food insecure people in the ten years that the United Nations has been conducting IPC analysis in Afghanistan. Globally, Afghanistan is home to the largest number of people with acute food insecurity, both absolute and relative.
“It is imperative that we work efficiently and effectively to accelerate our delivery in Afghanistan so that a large part of the country is cut off due to the cold. Millions of people – including farmers, women, young children and the elderly – are starving.” We can’t wait and see the humanitarian catastrophe unfold before us – it’s unacceptable! ” QU Dongyu, FAO Director General says.
“Afghanistan is now in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world – if not the worst – and food security has all collapsed. This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can increase our life-saving assistance, and “Unless the economy is revived, we are on the brink of disaster and if we do not act now, we will be in for a complete disaster,” said David Beasley, WFP’s executive director.
“Hunger is rising and children are dying. We can’t feed people on promises – the promise of financing must turn into hard cash and the international community must unite to deal with this crisis, which is rapidly spiraling out of control,” Basel warned.
The IPC report reflects a 37 percent increase in the number of Afghans facing severe hunger since the last assessment was issued in April 2021, the WFP said.
Among those at risk are 3.2 million children under the age of five who are expected to suffer from severe malnutrition by the end of the year. In October, WFP and UNICEF warned that one million children were at risk of dying from severe malnutrition without immediate life-saving treatment.
As the food crisis deepened under the Taliban Afghans sold children for survival
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Also Read:- Delhi’s air quality has reached dangerous levels after Diwali : Report 5 Nov 2021
