By Emma Farge
GENEVA, March 3 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands more children face acute malnutrition in Afghanistan this year amid a hunger crisis exacerbated by foreign aid cuts and violence on the border with Pakistan, a U.N. official said on Tuesday.
International aid to Afghanistan has fallen sharply since 2021, when U.S.-led forces exited the country and the Taliban regained power. The crisis has been compounded by natural calamities including earthquakes.
"Acute malnutrition among children is soaring. Last year we saw the highest surge ever recorded in Afghanistan, and this year, a staggering 3.7 million children will need malnutrition treatment," the World Food Programme's Country Director John Aylieff told a Geneva press briefing.
Some 200,000 additional children face acute malnutrition this year, he added.
Funding cuts mean the U.N. agency only has the resources to treat one in every four children needing treatment for acute malnutrition, Aylieff said.
Others do not even have the means to reach clinics, he said, voicing concerns that some are trapped by snowfall in remote highland areas.
Most children who die in Afghanistan do so "during the winter... at home silently", he said.
"What I fear is when the snow is melted at the end of March or in April, we will find there has been a very high toll of child deaths in the villages."
Expulsion policies in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran have resulted in over 5 million returnees since late 2023, further straining limited resources, Aylieff said.
Many of those returning to Afghanistan are close to areas where Pakistani and Afghan troops have clashed in recent days, forcing WFP to suspend some services there.
"We foresee that acute malnutrition will be driven up further by the conflict as people are prevented from accessing health services," imperilling tens of thousands of children, said Aylieff.
(Reporting by Emma FargeEditing by Gareth Jones)
