Crying babies dimmed by hunger fill this Afghanistan hospital – where parents fear each day might be the last
You can see, feel, hear the distress in Badakhshan’s Provincial Hospital in Afghanistan.
Warning: This article contains content some readers may find distressing.
The halls are heavy with the sound of crying babies. The rooms, full of malnourished children, many two to a bed. Their frail, fragile bodies expose their wasting bones, with some so weak they’re dependent on oxygen tanks to breathe.
Afghanistan is facing an unprecedented crisis of hunger. More than 4.7 million women and children require urgent treatment for malnutrition, according to the UN. And 90% of children under the age of five are in food poverty.
The hospital team in Badakhshan, in the northeast of the country, are doing all they can to keep the children alive. But increasing numbers are dying.
In the last three months alone, roughly one baby died every three days here. Fifty-three have passed away so far this year – that’s a 50% increase on the same time last year.
Faisal is 12 months old. He’s severely malnourished and has acute diarrhoea too. But like many on this ward, he has other serious complications.
Among these is hydrocephalus, a condition that causes water to gather around his brain. His poor mother is so exhausted, she’s lying on the floor by his bed.
Baby Faisal is only 12 months old
As she sits down to speak with us, she reveals she has already lost three children to malnutrition.
“I am worried about him and what might come next,” she tells me.
“I’ve already lost three of my children. My first daughter died at eight years old. Two more of my children passed away when they were two-and-a-half years old.”
The ward is full of lost-looking eyes, dimmed by hunger.
Baby Asma is malnourished
A horrifying thing to watch
Asma is 13 months old. But she weighs little over nine pounds (4kg) – less than half of what she should.
Doctors fear she might not survive the night. But she’s put on oxygen and by the morning, she thankfully starts to improve.
“I’m really afraid,” her mother Khadijah says as her eyes fill.
“Of course I’m afraid, I’ve cried so much. I’m so thankful to the doctors, they’ve kept my baby alive. I’m so grateful to them,” she says.
Asma’s mother says she is really afraid for her child
But it’s touch and go for her daughter, and there are long periods when her chest fails to rise and fall.
It’s a horrifying thing to watch – imagine as a parent sitting day and night, wondering whether the next breath might be her last.
There is a stream of desperate cases coming through the doors here.
Masouda’s family travelled 13 hours to get her help
Today, there are 20 babies to just 12 beds. Sometimes, it is even more crowded.
There are suddenly two new arrivals. One of them, little Masouda. Her family travelled 13 hours to get here – spending what little they had left.
She, too, has to be quickly placed on oxygen and she’s painfully thin. Doctors tell us they fear she won’t make it.
The team are doing an incredible job during a hugely demanding time. But they need more staff, more medicine, more equipment.
Hospitals and health clinics across Afghanistan have suffered major funding cuts. The US, which was Afghanistan’s biggest aid donor, this year pulled almost all of its funding to the country. And the Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls have proved a major barrier for many international donors.
Women gather in Badakhshan Provincial Hospital in Afghanistan
It’s having a direct impact on children’s chances of survival.
Daniel Timme, chief of communication at UNICEF, said: “The nutrition situation for children in Afghanistan is very serious and the numbers speak for themselves. Over 3.5 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including 1.4 million suffering life-threatening forms of wasting.
“It must be clear to everyone: when funding drops as we are seeing it now in a context with such high levels of malnutrition, preventable child deaths rise.”
A vital lifeline
In rural areas, poverty is as extreme as the landscape, and help for families with malnourished children is getting harder to reach.
Layaba Health Clinic is a vital lifeline.
The waiting room is full of mothers looking for medical assistance for their babies. Some women here tell us the Taliban’s restrictions on them working and earning money have also played a part, making it harder for them to feed their families.
“They are to blame,” one woman says with surprising candor.
“Every girl had her own dreams. I wanted to be a doctor. I took my responsibility for my children seriously. And I wanted to support my husband too.”
A baby looks up at her mother at Badakhshan Provincial Hospital
Another woman tells us she earned more than her husband as a teacher, but now finds herself unable to contribute financially.
The Taliban’s response
In an exclusive interview with Sky News, the Taliban’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the malnutrition crisis was the product of decades of conflict.
“We have had to start from zero to rebuild and restore our national resources. The Islamic Emirate is making every possible effort to address these challenges.”
Mr Mujahid said his government had a five-year plan to “tackle malnutrition, unemployment, and other pressing social issues”.
In response to the complaints of the women we spoke to, he said that men in the “vast majority” of Afghan families were the breadwinners and claimed the Islamic Emirate had made “significant efforts to promote vocational opportunities for women”.
Community health worker Harira
But under the Taliban, women can no longer train to be doctors, nurses and midwives. And in remote villages, community workers like Harira are often the only lifeline – a project part-funded by UNICEF.
She goes door-to-door carrying baby scales, carrying out check-ups, trying to teach families about what to feed their children and when needed, get them to clinics and hospitals for treatment.
It saved Ramzia’s son’s life.
She had measles when she was pregnant and her son Faisal was very underweight.
“His legs and hands were as small as my fingers. Now he’s much better,” Harira says – beaming as she delights in the weight he has now put on.
“I was afraid I’d lose him,” Ramzia says. “He was so weak. But Harira came here and taught me how to feed him and give him milk when he needed it.”
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Keeping children alive in this climate is a battle.
Nasrullah and Jamilah, who live on the outskirts of Fayzabad, are holding their two-month-old twins.
Nasrullah and Jamilah at the grave of their daughter, Shukriya
But they’re also in the throes of grief – on a journey to the grave of the baby they lost only a month ago. Her name was Shukriya. She was 18 months old.
“She was our child, we loved her. I will never forget her, so long as I’m alive. We really tried, we went to the doctors for check-ups, for ultrasounds, for blood work – we tried our very best. But none of it could save her.”
Both parents say they feared their twins could also face the same fate. Shukriya’s grave is covered with one of her babygrows. It is haunting to see. And there are other little graves next to hers.
Deaths aren’t documented in a lot of these communities. But locals tell us more and more children are dying because of malnutrition. A silent, searing loss that is spreading.
Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “amazing” – and says he will visit Beijing in April.
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met in South Korea as they tried to defuse growing tensions – with both countries imposing aggressive tariffs on exports since the president’s second term began.
Aboard Air Force One, Mr Trump confirmed tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US will be reduced, which could prove much-needed relief to consumers.
It was also agreed that Beijing will work “hard” to stop fentanyl flowing into the US.
Semiconductor chips were another issue raised during their 100-minute meeting, but the president admitted certain issues weren’t discussed.
“On a scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12,” he told reporters en route back to the US.
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‘Their handshake was almost a bit awkward’
Xi a ‘tough negotiator’, says Trump
The talks conclude a whirlwind visit across Asia – with Mr Trump saying he was “too busy” to see Kim Jong Un.
However, the president said he would be willing to fly back to see the North Korean leader, with a view to discussing denuclearisation.
Mr Trump had predicted negotiations with his Chinese counterpart would last for three or four hours – but their meeting ended in less than two.
The pair shook hands before the summit, with the US president quipping: “He’s a tough negotiator – and that’s not good!”
It marks the first face-to-face meeting between both men since 2019 – back in Mr Trump’s first term.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Pic: AP
There were signs that Beijing had extended an olive branch to Washington ahead of the talks, with confirmation China will start buying US soybeans again.
American farmers have been feeling the pinch since China stopped making purchases earlier this year – not least because the country was their biggest overseas market.
Chinese stocks reached a 10-year high early on Thursday as investors digested their meeting, with the yuan rallying to a one-year high against the US dollar.
Analysis: A fascinating power play
Sky News Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith – who is in Busan where the talks took place – said it was fascinating to see the power play between both world leaders.
She said: “Trump moved quickly to dominate the space – leaning in, doing all the talking, even responding very briefly to a few thrown questions.
“That didn’t draw so much as an eyebrow raise from his counterpart, who was totally inscrutable. Xi does not like or respond well to unscripted moments, Trump lives for them.”
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On Truth Social, Mr Trump had described the summit as a gathering of the “G2” – a nod to America and China’s status as the world’s two biggest economies.
While en route to see President Xi, he also revealed that the US “Department of War” has now been ordered to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Al Fashir by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a two-day window after the paramilitary group captured the regional capital, analysts believe.
Sky News is not able to independently verify the claim by Yale Humanitarian Labs, as the city remains under a telecommunications blackout.
Stains and shapes resembling blood and corpses can be seen from space in satellite images analysed by the research lab.
Al Fashir University. Pic: Airbus DS/2025
Al Fashir University. Pic: Airbus DS/2025
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale Humanitarian Labs, said: “In the past 48 hours since we’ve had [satellite] imagery over Al Fashir, we see a proliferation of objects that weren’t there before RSF took control of Al Fashir – they are approximately 1.3m to 2m long which is critical because in satellite imagery at very high resolution, that’s the average length of a human body lying vertical.”
Mini Minawi, the governor of North Darfur, said on X that 460 civilians have been killed in the last functioning hospital in the city.
The Sudan Doctors Network has also shared that the RSF “cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside Al Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions, and anyone else present in the wards”.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was “appalled and deeply shocked” by the reports.
Satellite images support the claims of a massacre at Al Saudi Hospital, according to Mr Raymond, who said YHL’s report detailed “a large pile of them [objects believed to be bodies] against a wall at one building at Saudi hospital. And we believe that’s consistent with reports that patients and staff were executed en masse”.
In a video message released on Wednesday, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo acknowledged “violations in Al Fashir” and claimed “an investigation committee should start to hold any soldier or officer accountable”.
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Army soldiers ‘fled key Sudan city’ before capture
The Saudi Maternity Hospital in Al Fashir. Pic: Airbus DS /2025 via AP
The commander is known for committing atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s as a Janjaweed militia leader, and the RSF has been accused of carrying out genocide in Darfur 20 years on.
Sources have told Sky News the RSF is holding doctors, journalists and politicians captive, demanding ransoms from some families to release their loved ones.
One video shows a man from Al Fashir with an armed man kneeling on the ground, telling his family to pay 15,000. The currency was not made clear.
In some cases, ransoms have been paid, but then more messages come demanding that more money be transferred to secure release.
Muammer Ibrahim, a journalist based in the city, is currently being held by the RSF, who initially shared videos of him crouched on the ground, surrounded by fighters, announcing his hometown had been captured under duress.
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He is being held incommunicado as his family scrambles to negotiate his release. Muammer courageously covered the siege of Al Fashir for months, enduring starvation and shelling.
The Committee to Protect Journalists regional director Sara Qudah said the abduction of Muammar Ibrahim “is a grave and alarming reminder that journalists in Al Fashir are being targeted simply for telling the truth”.
At least 30 people have died after Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean on Wednesday.
The Red Cross said early indications show the storm has been a “disaster of unprecedented catastrophe”.
Storm Melissa has so far ravaged through Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
At least 34 are estimated to be dead in the Caribbean, with eight of those in Jamaica, one in the Dominican Republic and 25 in Haiti.
This was down from a previously reported 40.
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‘Unimaginable’ destruction of Hurricane Melissa
‘Heartbreaking’ aerial footage reveals scale of destruction
Later on Wednesday, the Jamaican government confirmed four people – three men and one woman – had been killed. This figure later rose to eight.
Local government minister, Desmond McKenzie, said: “They were discovered after being washed up by the flood waters generated by the hurricane.”
Devastating aerial footage shows towns destroyed by the storm.
The Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness, travelled to St Elizabeth, where the first deaths were reported, to inspect the storm’s impact.
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Sharing aerial footage of battered homes, he wrote: “The damage is great, but we are going to devote all our energy to mount a strong recovery.”
The storm made landfall in Cuba in the early hours of Wednesday morning before leaving mid-afternoon, heading towards the Bahamas.
Hurricane Melissa has ravaged through the Caribbean. Pic: Reuters
‘Whole communities are underwater’
Alexander Pendry, British Red Cross global response manager, said: “News is already coming through that whole communities are underwater and that the damage left by the strong winds has been devastating.
“The Jamaica Red Cross has been proactively supporting communities by preparing essential supplies and managing shelters. Their priority now is to reach people with aid as soon as possible.
“Across the Caribbean, Red Cross teams have been mobilising as Melissa continues its trajectory across Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti.”
He added: “Tragically, experience tells us that the impact on communities and individuals will be shattering and long lasting.
“We will be here for as long as people need us.”
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