The Starving Children of Helmand Province

Already gripped by violence and poverty, Afghanistan is now in a malnutrition crisis that has left a quarter of its children underweight and could cost the country millions.

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan – The malnutrition ward at Bost Hospital in Lashkar Gah is normally packed with wide-eyed, withered babies and skeletal toddlers with swollen stomachs. But at the moment, only half of the beds are full.

BY SUNE ENGEL RASMUSSEN-MAY 1, 2015

That’s a bad sign.

It’s poppy harvest season in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province — the time of year when many rural households secure most of their annual earnings. And that means a dip in admissions to the hospital: Most women will not travel unaccompanied from the countryside to the city, and men cannot afford to abandon their work in the field to go with them. In a few days when farmers have wrapped up this year’s harvest, the children who make it to the hospital will be in a much more critical state — if they survive at all.

The Starving Children of Helmand Province.odt by Thavam Ratna