Hearts Broken in Afghanistan: A Mother's Grief as Hunger Claims Her Three Children

Fri Oct 10 2025 22:36:30 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

In a heart-wrenching account from Afghanistan, a mother mourns the loss of her three sons to malnutrition. This story highlights the devastating effects of hunger on families in the country as humanitarian efforts struggle to keep pace with the ever-increasing crisis.

Ghulam and Nazo mourn the loss of their three children, whose lives were claimed by malnutrition amid an escalating hunger crisis in Afghanistan. The couple's despair is echoed across the country, where the UN warns that over three million children are in peril due to a collapse in food assistance. As winter approaches, the situation grows increasingly desperate, with families going without food and aid diminishing dramatically.

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 in half with a saw from my head to my feet, said Ghulam.

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 has sharply declined since the US and other international donors cut aid to Afghanistan. As winter approaches, families are bracing themselves for a dire situation, where the suffering of children like Ghulam and Nazo's is becoming increasingly common.