The United Nations and the REACH research body have warned in a new assessment that continuing hunger, displacement and drought are putting the mental health of people in Afghanistan at serious risk. According to the report, children, women, people with disabilities, older people and internally displaced people are among the most vulnerable groups.<\/p>\n
The assessment, published on Thursday, Aug. 27, and republished on ReliefWeb, says 21.9 million people in Afghanistan need urgent humanitarian assistance. It also says 45% of the country’s population will face a severe humanitarian crisis in 2026.<\/p>\n
The report says severe food insecurity is one of the main drivers of the crisis. It forecasts that 17.4 million people will face acute hunger, including 4.7 million who will be in emergency conditions \u2014 more than twice last year’s figure.<\/p>\n
Another part of the report says drought caused by the La Nina phenomenon has severely affected 12 Afghan provinces and directly harmed 3.4 million people. The climate pattern, which has reduced snowfall and rainfall and caused abnormally high temperatures in winter and spring, has lowered groundwater levels and river flows and affected agriculture, livestock and drinking water supplies.<\/p>\n
Mental health and psychosocial support analysts in the report stressed that repeated shocks from lost income, displacement and severe restrictions on women and girls have placed unprecedented psychological pressure on society. They said this has widened the scope of mental vulnerability among target groups.<\/p>\n
The report also cites the return of more than 2.61 million Afghan migrants from Iran and Pakistan during 2025 as another factor increasing pressure on basic services and host communities. At the same time, the danger of unexploded ordnance remains, with an average of 50 people in Afghanistan killed or injured each month as a result of such explosions.<\/p>\n
According to the assessment, aid agencies plan to provide life-saving assistance to 17.5 million of Afghanistan’s neediest people in 2026 with a budget of $1.71 billion. The aid includes food, shelter, health services, drinking water and psychological support.<\/p>\n
REACH is a research and humanitarian assessment organisation that works with the United Nations and aid agencies in many humanitarian crises. ReliefWeb is also one of the world’s most important platforms for publishing information and reports related to humanitarian situations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.N. warns that hunger, drought and displacement are worsening mental health risks for millions in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-important-news","category-secondary-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}