UN News Today 4 August 2026 |

Afghanistan hunger crisis intensifies, millions left without food aid

Afghanistan’s acute hunger crisis now affects 14 million people including babies fed on weak tea and scraps of bread by their despairing and dirt-poor parents.

That’s the alarming message from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which also said that it lacks the resources to contain the deepening emergency. 

Today, 12 provinces have now reached critical levels of acute child malnutrition, the highest number ever recorded. 

Fuelling the crisis are conflict, a lack of jobs, soaring food prices, shrinking aid funding and disruption to supply routes, said WFP’s John Aylieff, Country Director for Afghanistan:

“When we spoke to Farida, her baby started crying from hunger. She reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle, a child’s bottle. Now, normally you expect the child’s bottle to be full of milk. This one only had weak tea in it. There was simply no money in the household for milk.” 

The return of six million Afghans pushed back mainly from Pakistan and Iran since September 2023, has increased the strain on the country’s already fragile economy. 

Conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan together with the Middle East crisis have also disrupted trade and pushed up food costs by 20 to 30 per cent, pricing the poor out of the market,” Mr. Aylieff explained. 

DR Congo: Ebola Bundibugyo treatment trials begin – WHO 

As deadly Ebola disease continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN World Health Organization (WHO) welcomed the start of trials for potential treatments but cautioned that they are not likely to be available for months.

So far, three testing sites have opened in eastern DRC’s Ituri province after Ebola Bundibugyo disease was declared a public health emergency on 15 May.

A fourth testing site is set to open later this week where patients can enrol in trials and be monitored in safe conditions to see if the medicines are effective, said Dr. Vasee Moorthy, acting head of WHO’s R&D Blueprint initiative:

“We are trying to ramp up the enrolment. So, it depends on how many sites within the affected area are open for enrolment. Because they’re a clinical trial we have to have safe monitoring of the people that are enrolled in the trial. And that does take time to have more and more teams and more sites enrolling patients.”

Research into possible vaccines to treat Ebola Bundibugyo is also progressing, with a trial now underway in the UK and another set to begin in Canada in coming days.

The current Ebola outbreak is the largest ever in DRC.

Hormuz crunch caused 95% drop in natural gas exports 

To the Strait of Hormuz, where amid reports that Oman and Iran may have reached a deal to reopen it to shipping, new economic data indicates that exports of natural gas via the strategic waterway dropped by a staggering 95 per cent.

In an update from the International Trade Centre, ITC – which is a subsidiary agency of the UN – said that exports for urea – a key component of fertilizers – fell by 83 per cent in April, too.

The Strait is a critical global trade chokepoint, carrying around one quarter of all oil transported by sea. 

The Japanese economy appears to be one of the hardest hit by the disruption, as it is highly dependent on products from the Gulf region and traditionally sources more than 90 per cent of its crude oil imports via Hormuz.

But in April, Tokyo recorded a 64 per cent drop in total imports and “alternative imports haven’t caught up to meet the shortfall”, ITC noted. 

The economic effects of the war have extended well beyond the cargo shipments, ITC stressed. 

It pointed to higher energy prices, freight rates, marine fuel costs and insurance premiums as some of the negative impacts of the conflict.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.