My three boys starved to death. I hope angels bring them home, says Afghan mother
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.
‘Three million children in peril’
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. John Aylieff, the World Food Programme's country director, stated, We started the year with the highest increase in child malnutrition ever recorded in Afghanistan. But things have got worse from there. With more than three million children in peril, urgent humanitarian aid is critical.
Hanifa Sayedi shares a similar plight. With a malnourished one-year-old son, she can only provide him tea-soaked bread, showing the devastating impact of poverty and hunger affecting countless families in the region. She admits feeling overwhelmed by guilt. “I feel so guilty that my children are going hungry and I can't do much,” she expressed. The tale of grief never seems to end as families share their stories in the graveyards, where two-thirds of the graves belong to children.
As the World Food Programme warns of a potential humanitarian disaster, the world watches in concern as Afghanistan’s youngest continue to suffer—caught in a cycle of despair while political stalemates leave them without support.
