1m Afghan children at risk of dying

Around 3.2 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in Afghanistan by the end of this year, with 1 million of them at risk of dying as temperatures drop, a World Health Organization spokesperson said yesterday.

Aid agencies have warned of famine as a drought coincides with a failing economy following the withdrawal of Western financial support in the aftermath of a Taliban takeover in August. The health sector has been hit especially hard, with many healthcare workers fleeing due to unpaid salaries.

"It's an uphill battle as starvation grips the country," Margaret Harris told Geneva-based journalists by telephone from the capital Kabul. "The world must not and cannot afford to turn its back on Afghanistan."

Nighttime temperatures are falling below zero degrees Celsius and colder temperatures are expected to make the old and the young more susceptible to other diseases, Harris said. In some places, people are chopping down trees to provide fuel for the hospitals amid widespread shortages, she added.

Harris did not have numbers for the number of children who had already died from malnutrition but described "wards filled with tiny little children", including with a seven-month old baby whom she described as "smaller than a newborn".

Measles cases are rising in the country and WHO data shows 24,000 clinical cases had so far been reported.

"For malnourished children, measles is a death sentence. We will see so many more deaths if we don't move on this quickly," Harris said.

On Wednesday, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said as many as 4,000-5,000 Afghans have been crossing into Iran daily since the Taliban seized Kabul in August and hundreds of thousands more are expected to arrive in the coming winter.

The aid group said as many as 300,000 Afghans have crossed the border since the Taliban victory and it called for more international support for Iran, which is grappling with a deep economic crisis of its own.

"Iran cannot be expected to host so many Afghans with so little support from the international community," NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland said in a statement. "There must be an immediate scale up of aid both inside Afghanistan and in neighbouring countries like Iran, before the deadly winter cold."

The shock victory of the Taliban as the last U.S. troops were preparing to leave Afghanistan, prompted a mass exodus of officials and others connected with the former Western-backed government and other vulnerable Afghans.