Gusts of wind blew dust up off the ground as Ghulam Mohiddin and his wife Nazo walked towards the graveyard where all their children are buried.
They showed us the graves of the three boys they lost in the past two years – one-year-old Rahmat, seven-month-old Koatan and most recently, three-month-old Faisal Ahmad. All three suffered from malnutrition, say Ghulam and Nazo.
Can you imagine how painful it's been for me to lose three children? One minute there's a baby in your arms, the next minute they are empty, says Nazo. I hope every day that angels would somehow put my babies back in our home.
There are days the couple go without food. They break walnut shells for a living in the Sheidaee settlement just outside the city of Herat in western Afghanistan and receive no help from the Taliban government or from NGOs.
Watching helplessly as my children cried out of hunger, it felt like my body was erupting in flames. It felt like someone was cutting me into half with a saw from my head to my feet, Ghulam shared.
The deaths of their children are not recorded anywhere, but it's evidence of a silent wave of mortality engulfing Afghanistan's youngest as the country is pushed into what the UN calls an unprecedented crisis of hunger.
Food assistance that had kept hunger and malnutrition at bay is rapidly deteriorating, exposing over three million children to peril. The WFP's John Aylieff emphasizes the urgency of international support, declaring, We started the year with the highest increase in child malnutrition ever recorded in Afghanistan. But things have got worse from there.
As winter approaches, the situation remains dire; families are increasingly unable to sustain basic nourishment. The heartbreaking cycle continues, with many parents, like Nazo and Ghulam, left to grieve the loss of their children while battling everyday survival.
