People are starving in Afghanistan, with nearly 9 million on the brink of famine.
Afghanistan is in the grip of a devastating food crisis. Children are dying today, and a million severely malnourished children are at risk of dying if urgent action is not taken. We need to act now to save lives.
Decades of conflict, poverty, and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were already taking their toll on the people of Afghanistan.
The recent conflict and change of government, coupled with the worst drought in 27 years, have tipped the country over the edge into humanitarian crisis. Economic collapse has sent food prices soaring. Afghanistan’s health care system has reached the brink of collapse.
If we don’t act now, many lives could be lost. Almost 23 million people are facing severe hunger in Afghanistan, with children amongst those most vulnerable.
How your support will help
Christian Aid's partners are able to reach people most in need, including by providing hygiene kits, emergency food for families and nutrition support for pregnant as well as new mothers and children under five.
People need help now.
Image credits and information
Our response: March 2022 update
Christian Aid is responding to Afghanistan’s hunger crisis in three provinces currently facing food shortages and coping with large numbers of people displaced by conflict. Through local partners, Christian Aid has provided life-saving food support to tens of thousands of people.
With additional money raised through the DEC Afghanistan appeal, Christian Aid will widen its response to six provinces working through three local partners. Vulnerable displaced families will be supported with cash for rent, food, and heating fuel as well as blankets and winter clothing to help families cope with freezing temperatures.
With funding from Irish Aid, Christian Aid’s local partner is supporting 900 families in Herat struggling to get enough food to eat. More than two-thirds of these families have been displaced by drought and conflict.
The families will be provided with enough food to last for one month as well as a hygiene kit containing items including towels, sanitary towels as well as soap and facemasks to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.
In addition, 200 pregnant and new mothers, as well as infant children from these families, will also be provided with supplementary food packages to help prevent malnutrition.
Thanks to your generous support of our Global Hunger Appeal, our partners have been able to carry out some humanitarian distributions.
Our local partner has provided food packages and hygiene kits to over 500 vulnerable families in Kabul, including those previously displaced by conflict and drought.
Prayer for Afghanistan
Come, Jesus…
Come, our Saviour,
come to all the people in Afghanistan,
in this bleakest of winters.
Come, with food and water,
to feed the hungry and refresh the thirsty ones.
Come, once a child yourself,
come to the children and the babies,
when so many cry with hunger pangs
and parents would give everything to feed them.
Come, the peace bearer,
come and bring your shalom to this land
after forty years of brutal war.
Come to those displaced and uprooted,
to a people fearful and vulnerable to violence.
Come, the light in our night,
come to families cold and shivering,
when infection passes from one to another,
while the economy is broken,
and creation groans in pain.
For all people, of all faiths,
to all children of every family,
in all the places where mothers weep and children cry,
come, God made vulnerable flesh,
to touch your world with true hope once more.
Turn our sorrow at the suffering of children,
and our determination that hate will not win,
into something we can do.
Take the money we give and the prayers we pray,
and stir in us, and in all your people,
whatever is needed for a new world to come.
From the depths of a bitter winter,
may hope spring.
