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One million children in Afghanistan are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition in a worsening new crisis gripping the country, the United Nations warned Tuesday.
Across Afghanistan, 3.7 million children suffer from wasting, meaning they are acutely malnourished, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said.
Among that number are "1 million children who are suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition," the worst form, said UNICEF's Afghanistan country representative Tajudeen Oyewale.
"If there is no treatment, and we are not able to act fast, that one million number are at risk of dying," he told a media briefing in Geneva from Kabul.
Afghanistan has endured repeated hunger crises in recent decades amid civil war and other emergencies. An economic collapse followed the Taliban government's return to power after U.S.-led forces withdrew in 2021.
Oyewale said nearly 40% of children admitted to hospitals with severe wasting and medical complications were babies under 6 months old.
Meanwhile, children under two years old make up more than 80 percent of severe acute malnutrition cases in the country.
"Malnutrition plays a central role" in the rising numbers of deaths among very young children, he said, describing a "worsening nutrition crisis" nationwide, with more than half a million children admitted to hospital so far this year for high-risk, moderate and severe wasting.
In July 2025, around 6,000 cases were recorded; this July the figure passed 8,000, a third higher.
"In parts of southern Afghanistan, some hospitals are now seeing three or four severe malnourished children for every available bed," he warned.
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