As a ruthless magnitude 6.0 earthquake ripped through eastern Afghanistan this week, it flattened entire mountain villages and shattered the fragile lives of thousands, particularly children, who were already grappling with soaring humanitarian needs and funding cuts.
This earthquake, centred in the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar, has already killed more than 1,400 people and the number is expected to rise, while aftershocks continue to wreak havoc. Thousands more are injured, with entire villages levelled in remote, mountainous terrain where roads are blocked, and rescue teams – including Save the Children mobile health staff – are battling to reach those in need.
But this is not just another natural disaster – it is a collision of disasters for Afghanistan, where nearly 23 million people – or just less than half of the population – need humanitarian assistance this year. More than 9 million people will face acute food insecurity, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, before October. At least 2 million people have been forced to return to Afghanistan this year alone from Iran and Pakistan. The result is catastrophic – and it is children who bear the brunt.
Such natural disasters demand a rapid and robust humanitarian response. Children need immediate medical attention, clean water, shelter and psychosocial support to recover from trauma. Yet these essential operations are being constrained – curtailed by aid cuts inflicted upon the global humanitarian system.
This year, international donors have cut foreign aid budgets. These decisions have come at exactly the wrong time. About 126 programmes run by Save the Children globally had been shut down by cuts in aid as of May, affecting about 10.3 million people. These are programmes that support millions of children in conflict zones, refugee camps and disaster-prone areas.
In Afghanistan, these cuts have meant less staff to respond when disaster strikes and to respond to a disaster such as this earthquake. Medical clinics have been closed, so there are fewer facilities to treat the injured, and the health facilities that are still open are desperately over-stretched, even before this disaster happened. Health services in Afghanistan cannot absorb blows like this earthquake.
The effect of aid cuts in Afghanistan has been acutely felt by Save the Children. Save the Children lost funding for 14 health clinics in northern and eastern Afghanistan, although we are using alternative short-term funding to keep them open currently. The loss of these clinics would mean 13,000 children losing access to healthcare in their villages.
Earlier this year, I visited Nangarhar province, now lying devastated by the huge earthquake, and I met children and their families struggling to survive. I have seen entire health centres run by our partners shut down. Families told me what that means: Mothers unable to give birth safely, children missing critical vaccinations, and households left without hope.
The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, exacerbated by aid cuts and now combined with a sudden-response scenario like the Afghan earthquake, makes for a crisis within a crisis. Aid agencies are stretched thin – or absent – due to staff layoffs and the closure of programmes and offices.
This earthquake should be a clarion call – for us to reinvest in humanitarian aid, swiftly and generously. Donor governments must reverse course, unblock emergency funding, and commit to longer-term financing of child-focused services.
Without immediate, sustained funding, we anticipate a rapid deterioration – children exposed to waterborne diseases, families forced into negative coping strategies like child labour or early marriage, and rising rates of malnutrition in a country where one in five children already faced crisis levels of hunger before the quake. By October this year, five million Afghan children – or about 20% of children in Afghanistan – were expected to face acute hunger, with funding cuts reducing the amount of food aid available by 40% and 420 health centres closed, removing access for three million people. Even before the aid cuts, 14 million people had limited access to healthcare.
We must ensure that when disaster strikes – whether an earthquake or conflict – we have the ability to respond – and quickly. We must make sure children’s rights endure, even when budgets falter.
This is a crisis compounding a crisis. We are witnessing the collapse of protective systems for children – medical, nutritional, educational, psychosocial – when they are most critical.
No child should die because the world’s attention wanes or budgets shrink. The children of Afghanistan were already vulnerable to hunger, disease, poverty, and isolation, and they have now been plunged into a deeper abyss.
