{"id":39735,"date":"2021-12-12T15:30:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-12T06:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/dec\/12\/the-observer-view-on-the-humanitarian-crisis-facing-afghanistan"},"modified":"2021-12-12T15:30:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-12T06:30:31","slug":"the-observer-view-on-the-humanitarian-crisis-in-afghanistan-observer-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=39735","title":{"rendered":"The Observer view on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan | Observer editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The west must not stand by and allow a million children to die of starvation this winter<\/p>\n<p>During 20 years of war in Afghanistan, according to the US-based Watson Institute\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/watson.brown.edu\/costsofwar\/figures\/2021\/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022\" title=\"\">Costs of War Project<\/a>, about 176,000 people were killed, of whom 46,000 were civilians. Dreadful though they are, these figures are dwarfed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/who-says-million-afghan-children-risk-dying-amid-acute-malnutrition-2021-11-12\/\" title=\"\">predictions<\/a> by the World Health Organization that 1 million Afghan children under five will die of starvation this winter. Another 2.2 million will suffer acute malnutrition \u2013 unless urgent action is taken.<\/p>\n<p>Relief organisations have warned for months of an impending humanitarian catastrophe. Now the catastrophe has arrived. \u201cHunger in the country has reached truly unprecedented levels,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/a\/millions-of-afghans-facing-crisis-of-hunger-and-starvation-\/6338259.html\" title=\"\">UN refugee agency<\/a> said on 3 December. \u201cNearly 23 million people \u2013 that is 55% of the population \u2013 are facing extreme levels of hunger and nearly 9 million of them are at risk of famine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/dec\/12\/the-observer-view-on-the-humanitarian-crisis-facing-afghanistan\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The west must not stand by and allow a million children to die of starvation this winterDuring 20 years of war in Afghanistan, according to the US-based Watson Institute\u2019s Costs of War Project, about 176,000 people were killed, of whom 46,000 were civi&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,1527,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-famine","category-south-and-central-asia"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/363"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39736,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39735\/revisions\/39736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}