UNICEF: Almost 16 million children sleep hungry in Afghanistan

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
19 May 2023 09:38

According to UNICEF, nearly 2.3 million children in Afghanistan will face acute malnutrition in 2023.

An Afghan child holds bread in a bakery in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Reuters)

On Thursday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned of a "children's crisis" in Afghanistan, with roughly 16 million children undernourished.

Fran Equiza, UNICEF's Afghanistan representative, told reporters that clean water to quench their thirst is not available, nor are blankets to cover themselves with to sleep.

The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, after the US withdrew from the country, was followed by a halt in foreign financial support, and has left the war-torn country in an economic, humanitarian, and human rights crisis.

In February, a federal judge ruled that the relatives of 9/11 victims cannot lay their hands on $3.5 billion in funds belonging to Afghanistan's central bank.

The assets were illegally frozen on August 15, 2021, the day the Taliban entered Kabul concurrently with the hasty withdrawal of US occupation forces from Afghanistan. Later, US President Joe Biden stated that he would have the $7 billion in illegally frozen funds split between Afghan humanitarian aid and what he called American victims of "terrorism", including 9/11 families.

None of those responsible for the attacks of September 11 were Afghan.

At the time, demonstrations erupted in Kabul in protest to Biden’s order to appropriate $3.5 billion that belong to the struggling Afghan people. The step was slammed as a showcase of theft and US moral decline by top Taliban officials.

It is worth noting that using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext, then-president George W Bush launched a brutal invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in the two decades of war on Afghanistan.

According to Equiza, nearly 1.6 million Afghan children are stuck in child labor at home, on the streets, in farms, mines, and stores, while 2.3 million are estimated to suffer from malnutrition in 2023.

"Children as young as six are in dangerous conditions to help their parents put a little food on the table," he explained.

"Too many live in fear of violence, or early marriage. Too many are burdened by the weight of a dual responsibility," he said. "Too many people have forgotten that Afghanistan is a children's crisis."