The United Nations warns that about one million Afghan children are suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, with 3.7 million children in total affected by wasting as of August 2026.

Across Afghanistan, more than 80 percent of severe acute malnutrition cases involve children under two, and nearly 40 percent of hospitalized severe wasting patients are babies under six months.

UNICEF Afghanistan’s Tajudeen Oyewale cautions that without rapid treatment, the one million children with severe acute malnutrition face imminent risk of dying.

Families are cutting back on nutritious food, cutting meal sizes, and using inadequate first foods for young children, creating a cycle of malnutrition, infections, and relapse after treatment.

The crisis is worsened by droughts, floods, regional instability, cross-border trade disruptions, and the large return of six million Afghans from abroad since 2023, many of whom are children straining resources.

Hospital admissions for high-risk wasting rose from about 6,000 in mid-2025 to over 8,000 in mid-2026, with some southern hospitals reporting three or four severely malnourished children per available bed.

Aid funding for UNICEF’s nutrition program in Afghanistan stands at US$180 million for 2026 but is only 22 percent funded, and more than 100 pediatric sites treating severe wasting have closed since 2025.