She had six children lost. Three was the age at which none of them survived, and now one is fighting for her life.
Bibi Hajira is a newborn at seven months old. In the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, she is half a bed in a ward of the Jalalabad regional hospital, suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
“My children’s poverty is killing them. Amina cries almost aloud in agony, “All I can feed them is dry bread and water that I warm by keeping it out under the sun.
The fact that her tale is not unusual and that a great number of lives may be saved with prompt medical attention is even more tragic.
Acute malnutrition affects 3.2 million children nationwide, including Bibi Hajira. Afghanistan has suffered from this ailment for many years, brought on by forty years of conflict, severe poverty, and a host of other circumstances in the three years since the Taliban took power.
However, things have now escalated to an unprecedented breaking point.
The accounts from a single, little hospital room can provide some insight into the impending catastrophe because it is difficult for anyone to envision what 3.2 million people looks like.
