A Lifeline for millions in Afghanistan’s Harsh Winters

In Afghanistan’s remote Pamir and Wakhan valleys, winter is not just a season—for many it is a fight for survival. For poor families living in the deep mountains - isolation, hunger and the bitter cold define life for nine long months each year. When the snow falls, roads vanish and with them, the lifelines that keep thousands alive.

Haji Rasool, a community elder from Big Pamir, knows this struggle better than anyone. “We have only three months of summer and nine months of snow,” he says, his voice heavy with exhaustion after walking seven days to reach the nearest WFP distribution point. “There are no roads, no trees, no crops - only some livestock and fragile hope.”

“If we don’t receive WFP’s assistance, we do not know where our food will come from.”

For generations, his people have lived without a proper road, relying on livestock and trade to survive. But even that is not enough. “We buy two packs of wheat flour in exchange for one sheep,” he explains. “For big families, this is nothing.”

Members from his community walk miles to collect three-months-worth of ration from WFP. They ration the wheat flour, pulses, cooking oil, salt and specialized nutritious food for women and children to prevent malnutrition - stretching the supplies for as long as possible. 

With humanitarian aid dwindling in Afghanistan, it is families like Rasool’s who will suffer most. Last winter was catastrophic. Forty people died - young mothers and children - because they were sick and weak while food and medicines didn’t reach them in time. Malnutrition is rampant, and families often survive on borrowed flour. “Some eat only once a day,” adds Rasool.

A Mother’s Fight Against Hunger

Hundreds of kilometers away in Wakhan, 22-year-old Gulnuma fights her own battle. Malnourished when pregnant, she discovered her condition during a clinic visit. “I was put onto WFP’s nutrition programme and received nutritious food every month,” she says. 

She and her family members often survive on little more than milk tea three times a day. “My husband is unemployed. There is no work, no food and winter is very cold,” she explains. “We have no other option but to live on milk tea.”

Despite her hardships, Gulnuma dreams of becoming a midwife - a dream that feels distant in a place where survival overshadows ambition. “I wanted to become a midwife, but it didn’t happen,” she says softly. “I still hope. I want my daughter to go to school and I want her to get proper nutrition.” Her words echo the hopes of countless Afghan mothers who want more for their children than hunger and hardship.

For families like Rasool’s and Gulnuma’s, WFP’s food and nutrition assistance especially during the harsh winter months is a lifeline and supporting these families and millions of others in Afghanistan would not be possible without the generous support from our partners like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Australia, Canada, the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), EU Humanitarian Aid, France, Germany (GFFO), Greece, Iceland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Private Donors, Russian Federation, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. 

WFP has historically scaled-up its assistance during the winter months to keep a lid on hunger and malnutrition. But this winter marks a turning point. For the first time in decades, WFP cannot mount a significant response just as needs peak. Without this lifeline, millions face the cold months with little more than fragile hope, as hunger and malnutrition threaten to deepen across communities already on the edge of survival.

The consequences will be devastating.

Hunger is deepening at an alarming pace across Afghanistan, with food insecurity widening in scale and severity. The country now ranks fourth worldwide for child acute malnutrition and remains one of the world’s most severe hunger crises, with one in three Afghans - 17.4 million people - in urgent need of food assistance. As winter approaches, malnutrition among women and children is expected to spike to levels not seen in recent years.

Story by: Ziauddin Safi