NewsA new report [text, PDF] released Monday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) [official website] shows that children in Afghanistan are bearing the brunt of the nutritional crisis, despite attempts at administering food aid. OCHA has concluded that currently there are 9.3 million people in the country in need of aid, an increase of 13 percent from last year that is being attributed to a spreading of violence across the country. As violence spread, people became displaced, with the figure rising to half a million people by November. Over half of those numbers of displaced persons were children. As people were forced from their homes, access to food and proper nutrition became the problem. More than a fourth of Afghan provinces have malnutrition rates over 15 percent, which leaves them above emergency thresholds. This is due to a lack of crop production, producing less than 2015 by a gap of 1.2 million metric tons. 1.8 million people in the country require assistance due to malnutrition, 1.3 million of whom are children. The UN is concerned that these conditions will create an atmosphere that will lead to the children being exposed to higher risk of abuse, exploitation and hunger.
The current conflict in Afghanistan is one of a long line of conflicts in the country, which continue to expose its citizens to rigorous living conditions and exposes them to harm. In November the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] stated that during the war in 2001, the US may have been guilty of committing war crimes [JURIST report] against the Afghan people. In October the UN released a report finding that an attack by Islamic State
