On Tuesday, CNN’s The Lead With Jake Tapper showed graphic footage of malnourished children in Afghanistan as the United Nations is warning of a “humanitarian catastrophe” inside the Taliban-controlled country.
Before the segment played, guest host Jim Sciutto warned that “some of the images in this story may be difficult to watch.”
“A little girl sobs, gently rubbing her ears. In a fable attempt to ease the pain tormenting her body. She doesn’t have the energy to cry the way other sick children do,” narrated international correspondent Anna Coren. “Camilla is exhausted. As she lies in a hospital bed in Kandahar, Southern Afghanistan, slowly starving to death.”
Camilla is 2.5 years old and weighs just over 11 Ibs., according to Coren, who said that Camilla is “one of at least a million Afghan children under the age of 5 at risk of dying from starvation.”
For months the U.N. has been sounding the alarm, warning that Afghanistan was on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe,” she continued. “The Taliban takeover on the 15th of August saw international funds immediately dry up, triggering an economic collapse in an already-impoverished country where foreign aid represented 43 percent of the country’s GDP and 75 percent of government spending, according to the World Bank.”
International aid organizations have “blame[d] the U.S. withholding billions of dollars in Afghan reserves and sanctions … imposed on the Taliban government” and “the West’s attempts to force fundamental change
The hospital in northwestern Afghanistan Coren visited sees “up to 100 mothers and children turn up each day with varying cases of malnutrition,” she said.
Coren cited quotes from leading intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations about the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
“Hunger in the country has reached truly unprecedented levels,” said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
“IRC finds global ‘system failures’ fueling crises and driving record levels of humanitarian need,” said the International Rescue Committee. “Afghanistan tops list of countries most at risk in the year ahead.”
“The international community is turning its back as the country teeters on the precipice of man-made catastrophe,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Watch above, via CNN.