The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday that the scale and severity of hunger and malnutrition in Afghanistan is worsening. New food security figures from the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report show that over 17 million Afghans are facing acute hunger this winter — three million more than last year.
Child malnutrition is also projected to rise, affecting nearly four million children in the coming year, with around 26 percent experiencing severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Child malnutrition is already at its highest level in decades. Unprecedented reductions in funding for aid agencies providing essential services mean that access to treatment is increasingly scarce, and children are dying from SAM.
Without treatment, malnutrition in children is life-threatening, and child deaths are likely to rise further during the harsh winter months, when food is scarcest. Additionally, an estimated 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition.
WFP warns that all key indicators point to a brutal winter season ahead for Afghanistan’s most vulnerable families.
“WFP has been warning for months about the clear signs of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and the latest data confirms our worst fears,” said John Aylieff, WFP Country Director in Afghanistan, in a statement.
“Our teams are seeing families skipping meals for days on end and taking extreme measures to survive. Child deaths are rising, and they risk becoming worse in the months ahead.”
Afghanistan is bracing for a harsh winter as multiple crises continue to plague the country. Drought has affected half the country and destroyed crops. Job losses and a weakened economy have eroded incomes and livelihoods. Recent earthquakes have left families homeless, pushing humanitarian needs to new extremes.
According to the IPC analysis, only 2.7 percent of the population in Afghanistan receives food assistance, while an estimated 17.4 million people — more than a third of the population — are projected to face crisis levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3) or worse between November 2025 and March 2026, including 4.7 million in emergency levels of hunger (IPC Phase 4).
Forced returns from Pakistan and Iran further compound the situation, with 2.5 million Afghans sent back to Afghanistan since the beginning of the year. Many arrive malnourished and destitute. Nearly as many more are expected to return in 2026.
Extreme funding cuts have further limited the amount of assistance that WFP can provide to the population. As the humanitarian crisis deepens, humanitarian aid for Afghanistan is shrinking, leaving millions without support that has historically prevented severe hunger and malnutrition.
“We need to bring Afghanistan’s crisis back into the headlines to give the most vulnerable Afghans the attention they deserve,” added Aylieff.
“We must stand with the people of Afghanistan who depend on critical support to survive, and deploy proven solutions towards a recovery with hope, dignity and prosperity.”
For the first time in decades, WFP is unable to launch a significant winter response or scale up emergency and nutrition support nationwide.
On Tuesday, Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis, told journalists in Geneva that the UN agency has the personnel, trucks, contracts, and access necessary to provide assistance to the population. However, funding must increase immediately to avert the most extreme impacts on the country.
WFP urgently requires US$468 million to deliver life-saving food assistance to six million of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people and help them survive the harsh winter. With immediate funding, the agency is ready to mount a large-scale winter response, ensuring families can push back hunger and avoid falling deeper into crisis.
In response to questions from reporters, Bauer said that funding for WFP activities in Afghanistan is currently at 12 percent of the target amount and that the UN agency is currently supporting fewer than one million people per month in Afghanistan. This number needed to increase to six million.
He added that WFP is talking to donors and raising awareness about the importance of supporting vulnerable countries. Additionally, the organization is prioritizing its use of funding and targeting the most vulnerable areas. However, it is unable to help all extremely vulnerable individuals in Afghanistan.
The 2025 Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) aimed to provide assistance to 16.8 million people this year at a cost of approximately $2.4 billion. However, with only two weeks left in the year, the plan is currently only 38 percent funded, having received just $909 million to date.
With millions of Afghans returning from neighboring countries and the global humanitarian funding crisis taking a heavy toll on the country, the prospect of an even deeper humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan hangs heavy.
Millions of Afghans continue to struggle to survive amid one of the world's largest and most neglected humanitarian crises. Nearly half of Afghanistan's population — 22 million people — will require humanitarian assistance in 2026.
According to the Global Humanitarian Overview 2026, released last week, the crisis in Afghanistan is rooted in decades of conflict, recurrent exposure to disaster-related shocks, chronic poverty, underdevelopment, limited access to essential services, and systematic human rights violations, particularly against women and girls.
In August 2025, a major earthquake struck the eastern region, killing thousands and destroying entire villages in remote, impoverished areas. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes in Afghanistan's recent history, and humanitarian needs are expected to persist well into next year, as thousands remain displaced in camps and informal settlements.
Afghanistan has experienced four major earthquakes in the past four years, each devastating different regions of the country.
Further information:
Full text: Afghanistan: Acute Food Insecurity Situation for September–October 2025 and Projection for November 2025–March 2026 and April–September 2026, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, report, released December 16, 2025
https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Afghanistan_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Malnutrition_Jun2025_Sep2026_Snapshot.pdf