Despair in Afghanistan: A Mother's Heartbreaking Loss and the Child Malnutrition Crisis

Sat Oct 11 2025 06:00:06 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

In Afghanistan, a mother mourns the loss of her three children to starvation amid an escalating hunger crisis affecting millions. Insights reveal the struggles faced by families and the unaccounted death toll from malnutrition.

Ghulam Mohiddin and Nazo are devastated parents grieving the loss of their three young sons to malnutrition in Afghanistan. Their story reflects a broader crisis, with over three million children facing severe hunger and malnutrition in a country experiencing a humanitarian disaster. As international aid dwindles, families grapple with extreme poverty and the dire consequences of food scarcity.

Gusts of wind blew dust up off the ground as Ghulam Mohiddin and his wife Nazo walked towards the graveyard where all their children are buried.

They showed us the graves of the three boys they lost in the past two years – one-year-old Rahmat, seven-month-old Koatan and most recently, three-month-old Faisal Ahmad.

All three suffered from malnutrition, say Ghulam and Nazo.

Can you imagine how painful it's been for me to lose three children? One minute there's a baby in your arms, the next minute they are empty, says Nazo.

I hope every day that angels would somehow put my babies back in our home.

There are days the couple go without food. They break walnut shells for a living in the Sheidaee settlement just outside the city of Herat in western Afghanistan and receive no help from the Taliban government or from NGOs.

Watching helplessly as my children cried out of hunger, it felt like my body was erupting in flames. It felt like someone was cutting me into half with a saw from my head to my feet, said Ghulam.

The deaths of their children are not recorded anywhere, but it's evidence of a silent wave of mortality engulfing Afghanistan's youngest, as the country is pushed into what the UN calls an unprecedented crisis of hunger.

There are over three million children in peril, with malnutrition soaring amidst a collapsing humanitarian landscape in Afghanistan...