Afghan Mother Mourns Three Sons Lost to Starvation Amid Growing Crisis

Fri Oct 10 2025 11:46:22 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

In a heart-wrenching account, an Afghan mother shares her agony over losing three children to malnutrition, as the country faces an unprecedented hunger crisis affecting millions.

Ghulam Mohiddin and Nazo, a couple from the Sheidaee settlement in Afghanistan, have lost three sons to severe malnutrition in less than two years. With the ongoing humanitarian crisis exacerbated by reduced international aid and government sanctions, the tragedies faced by families like theirs are becoming increasingly common. As the UN warns of escalating hunger, over three million children in Afghanistan are in peril, and many families are left without hope.

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.

We started the year with the highest increase in child malnutrition ever recorded in Afghanistan. But things have got worse from there, says John Aylieff, the World Food Programme's country director.

As the malnutrition emergency is compounded by a severe drought and the forced return of nearly two million Afghans from abroad, families like Ghulam and Nazo's are caught in a desperate fight for survival.

Many families are resorting to extreme measures to cope. It's incredibly heartbreaking to be in this country and watch this unfold. We've had to retrain our call operators at WFP because we're receiving a higher proportion of calls from women threatening suicide, says Aylieff.

The urgent need for aid continues to grow, but funding has sharply declined as major donors have cut off financial support. With winter approaching, the situation for many families is dire, and the specter of further child deaths looms large.