RASC News Agency: The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered a chilling assessment of Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation: despite the country’s current harvest season, an estimated 9.5 million Afghanistanis are enduring severe food insecurity a staggering figure that exposes the depth of a crisis now driven as much by political repression as by environmental disaster. In its July report, the WFP disclosed that it had managed to reach only one million people with food assistance during this period a fraction of those in need. Without an urgent infusion of funds, the agency warns, lifesaving food distribution will be slashed in the coming months. Already, critical nutrition programmes for malnourished women and children are running at breaking point, with many feeding centres forced to turn away the hungry after barely a week of operations due to depleted resources.
The agency identified three essential lifelines for preventing mass starvation remittance flows, agricultural output, and humanitarian aid all now under severe and simultaneous strain. Yet in the midst of these pressures, Taliban policies have emerged as a force multiplier for hunger. Aid organisations report that the regime’s escalating restrictions, harassment of humanitarian workers, and interference in distribution networks have compelled dozens of agencies to suspend or terminate their operations altogether. Adding to this man-made devastation is an unforgiving drought that now afflicts 19 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, wiping out harvests and pushing local food supplies well below survival thresholds. Even where aid is available, Taliban checkpoints and bureaucratic obstruction often dictate who eats and who starves, turning humanitarian assistance into a tool of political control.
Despite these obstacles, the WFP managed in July to deliver food and cash aid to 1.7 million people, including $1.4 million in direct cash transfers to 637,000 individuals. Women with children make up 80% of aid recipients, underscoring the disproportionate toll this crisis exacts on the most vulnerable. International observers warn that the Taliban’s interference is not merely an administrative hindrance but a deliberate strategy using hunger as a lever of subjugation. This weaponization of famine, coupled with the regime’s economic mismanagement and suppression of independent livelihoods, risks propelling Afghanistan into a humanitarian abyss without precedent in its modern history.
Unless there is an immediate and coordinated international response one that bypasses Taliban gatekeeping and restores direct channels of aid to communities millions more Afghanistanis may find themselves not just victims of hunger, but hostages to it.
