Malnutrition stalks the most vulnerable in Afghanistan as aid cuts leave millions helpless

KABUL, Afghanistan — Lying in her hospital cot, the 3-year-old girl roamed the room with her gray-green eyes, but her body was listless.

Her mother sat by her bedside, quietly weeping. Just a few months ago, she lost her 5-year-old daughter, Khadija, to the same condition: malnutrition.

Both girls had the same symptoms: thin limbs but swollen hands, feet and belly, signs of a severe type of malnutrition caused by protein deficiency. And now 25-year-old Malika is terrified that Kalsoum, her youngest daughter, will meet the same fate as Khadija.

“I am worried about her, that she might die,” Malika said, wiping her tears with her green headscarf. “My husband is a day laborer. Sometimes there is work, sometimes there isn’t.” The $3-$4.60 he earns on days when he can find work just isn’t enough to feed the family, which also includes three young boys.

Kalsoum is far from alone. In the malnutrition ward in the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, Afghanistan’s main children’s hospital, all 20 beds — the maximum the hospital can afford — are full.

Across Afghanistan, hunger and malnutrition are rising dramatically.

“More people are suffering from hunger than ever before,” John Aylieff, Afghanistan country…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/world