“Children’s safety has to be a priority,” stated Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. His plea comes two days after an explosion ripped through a religious school in Aybak, the capital of Samangan province. At least 19 students and children were killed and 23 injured, reports the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. After calling that attack “intolerable,” Bennett notes that 288 children were killed in Afghanistan in the past six months, according to UNICEF, which says that the real figure could be even higher.
“Children should never be targets of violence,” UNICEF says, as it “urges all parties in Afghanistan to do everything they can to always keep children safe. Children need peace and protection to enjoy their childhoods, live to their full potential, and contribute to a prosperous Afghanistan.”
While the United Nations is doing what it can to help the most vulnerable in Afghanistan, it is hampered by a lack of funding from international donor nations. Children are particularly at risk as the country enters its harsh winter months. Child malnutrition cases in Afghanistan have shot up by 47 percent in the first nine months of 2022, says Save the Children in a report released at the end of October. It tracked the number of “dangerously malnourished children admitted to Save the Children’s mobile health clinics” between January and September. At the start of 2022, the aid charity admitted 2,500 malnourished children a month for treatment at 57 clinics; in September, that number had shot up to 4,270 at 66 clinics, according to the report.
