UN Official Warns of Economic Collapse and Food Insecurity in Afghanistan

Oct. 30, 2021 (EIRNS)—In New York, UN humanitarian affairs chief Martin Griffiths told The Associated Press in an interview that the G20 leaders should worry about Afghanistan because its economy is collapsing and half the population risks not having enough food to eat as winter snows have already started to fall. Half the Afghan children under 5 years old at risk of acute malnutrition, and there is an outbreak of measles which has struck in every one of the 34 provinces which is “a red light” and “the canary in the mine” for what’s happening in society, he said.

Griffiths warned that food insecurity leads to malnutrition, then disease and death, and “absent corrective action,” the world will be seeing deaths in Afghanistan. He said the World Food Program is feeding 4 million people in Afghanistan now, but the UN predicts that because of the dire winter conditions and the economic collapse it is going to have to provide food to triple that number—12 million Afghans—“and that’s massive.”

“So, the message that I would give to the leaders of the G20 is worry about economic collapse in Afghanistan, because economic collapse in Afghanistan will, of course, have an exponential effect on the region,” he said. “And the specific issue that I would ask them to focus on first, is the issue of getting cash into the economy in Afghanistan—not into the hands of the Taliban—into the hands of the people whose access to their own bank accounts is not frozen.”