Entirely funded by Washington, the project had to shut down when the United States -- until recently the largest aid donor in Afghanistan -- froze all foreign assistance.
“If they don’t get treatment, there’s an extreme high risk of dying,“ she told AFP.
“When malnourished patients come to our clinic, it’s a big challenge for our staff to explain the situation to them and to tell them that they need to go elsewhere for proper treatment,“ said chief doctor Farid Ahmad Barakzai.
'So many shocks'
They stay there for several days with their mothers not only to be fed but to prevent them from spiralling into illness.
It’s “painful” for the staff, finishing their last days of work, Rietveld added, because “they have to send them somewhere else where they don’t have the same specialized treatment”.
Some 3.5 million children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition and the country has one of the highest rates of stunting in the world, according to the UN.
Last week, the World Food Programme said the United States had ended funding for its work in Afghanistan, having gone back on cuts to other countries.
“So with a fragile system, even basic care of screening, those are even not there,“ he said, underscoring that “of course the most vulnerable are the most affected”.
The funding crisis has also led to numerous layoffs in the humanitarian sector, in a country where the unemployment rate reached 12.2 percent in 2024, according to the World Bank.
“I have crying people in my office,“ said Rietveld. “We listen, we offer support, but we can’t get them a job.”
They can no longer work in many sectors and are not allowed to study beyond primary school, unless they enrol in a religious school, leading the UN to label the system as “gender apartheid”.
To recover after the loss of US funding, which made up 30 percent of the ACF’s local budget, the organisation is “in the process of writing proposals” and “discussing with donors”, Rietveld said.
“But I don’t think other donors can cover the gap.”
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