UN says 19.2 million people in Afghanistan face acute food insecurity this winter

GENEVA — The number of people in Afghanistan facing acute food insecurity is projected to rise to 19.2 million during the winter lean season, the United Nations said on Tuesday, according to Arab News.

Five million of those people are expected to face emergency levels of hunger, the UN said, as reported by the outlet. The lean season runs from November to April, according to the same report.

The UN statement

Olga Cherevko, the Afghanistan spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, gave the figures at a press briefing in Geneva, Arab News reported.

"The number facing acute food insecurity is projected to rise to 19.2 million, of which five million are expected to face emergency levels of hunger," Cherevko said, according to Arab News.

She described the emergency level as "one step away from famine," the outlet reported.

The figures are projections. Arab News did not report that the numbers had already been reached. It said they were expected to apply across the winter lean season between November and April.

What the report does not say

The Arab News article is brief and gives no further detail on how the UN reached its estimate. It does not say what is driving the expected increase, and it does not give a comparison with earlier years.

The report also does not say which provinces are most affected. It does not mention how much funding OCHA or other aid agencies have received or need for their operations in Afghanistan.

Arab News did not include responses from Afghan authorities or from other aid organisations. Zenga News has not independently verified the figures. All details in this report are attributed to Arab News's account of the Geneva briefing.

Background

Acute food insecurity is the term the UN used in the briefing, as reported by Arab News. According to the outlet's account, the emergency level of hunger that five million people are expected to reach sits one step below famine, in Cherevko's words.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA, for which Cherevko speaks on Afghanistan, held the briefing in Geneva. The Arab News report was published on 20 October 2026, and its summary describes the projection as covering the winter months.

For readers following Afghanistan news today, the main points in the source are limited to three figures and one timeframe. They are 19.2 million people facing acute food insecurity, five million of them expected to face emergency hunger, and a lean season from November to April. Further updates from OCHA or other UN bodies would be needed to establish how the situation develops and whether the projection changes.