Millions Facing Acute Food Insecurity In Afghanistan As Winter Looms, UN Warns

Geneva : More than 17 million people in Afghanistan will face crisis-level hunger in the coming winter months, the leading international authority on hunger crises and the UN food aid agency warned on Tuesday.

The number at risk is nearly 3 million more than a year ago.

Economic hardship, recurring droughts, dwindling international aid and an influx of Afghans returning home from countries such as neighboring Iran and Pakistan have strained resources and increased pressures on food security, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, known as the IPC, which tracks hunger crises.

“What the IPC tells us is that more than 17 million people in Afghanistan face acute food insecurity. That’s 3 million more than last year,” Jean-Martin Bauer, director of food security at the UN World Food Programme, told reporters in Geneva.

“There are almost 4 million children in a state of acute malnutrition,” he said in the video from Rome. “Approximately 1 million people are severely acutely malnourished, and these are actually children who need hospital treatment.”

According to the IPC report, food aid in Afghanistan reaches only 2.7 percent of the population; More than 2.5 million people have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year, worsened by the weak economy, high unemployment and reduced remittance flows from abroad.

The report stated that more than 17 million people, more than a third of the population, will face crisis-level food insecurity in the four months to March 2026. Of these, 4.7 million may face immediate food insecurity.

According to IPC’s forecast, an improvement is expected in the spring harvest season, which will start in April.

Last week, the UN warned of a “serious” and “precarious” crisis in Afghanistan as it enters its first winter in years without US foreign aid and virtually no international food distribution.

The situation has worsened due to “overlapping shocks” including recent deadly earthquakes and increasing restrictions on access to humanitarian aid and personnel, U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council on Wednesday.

While Fletcher said around 22 million Afghans will need UN assistance in 2026, his organization will focus on the 3.9 million Afghans who face the most urgent need for life-saving aid in light of declining donor contributions.