The tragedy of Afghanistan’s malnourished children

Every few seconds a sick child is brought in to the emergency room of the main hospital in Lashkar Gah in a race against time to save the youngest casualties of Afghanistan’s hunger crisis.

Amidst the heart-rending sound of dozens of hungry babies crying, and desperate pleas for help from their mothers, nurses scramble to prioritise children who need urgent care. There are many such babies.

Lashkar Gah is a city in the capital of Helmand, one of Afghanistan’s most war-ravaged provinces and lies roughly 400 miles (644km) south-west of Kabul.

Jalil Ahmed is brought in hardly breathing. His hands and feet have gone cold. He’s rushed through to the resuscitation room. His mother Markah says he’s two and a half years old, but he looks a lot tinier. He’s severely malnourished and has tuberculosis. Doctors work fast to revive h