UN needs $220 million per month to feed Afghans, says WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday said that the UN needs USD 220 million per month to feed 23 million Afghans.

"Afghanistan is facing an avalanche of hunger and destitution the likes of which I have never seen in my twenty-plus years with the World Food Program," WFP Country Director Mary-Ellen McGroarty said in a press release.

McGroarty added that the WFP urgently needs USD 220 million each month in 2022 for 23 million Afghans.

In November, WFP assisted more than seven million people, dispatching over 50,000 million tons of food - almost double the dispatches in September, the release said.

In preparation for the coming year, WFP began prepositioning food in strategic locations across the northeast and central highlands of the country where heavy winter snows can cut off communities from assistance, the release added.

An estimated 98 per cent of Afghans are not consuming enough food, a 17 per cent increase since August, according to the latest WFP survey cited in the release.

The humanitarian crisis deepened in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country in mid-August.