So much for "progress" in Afghanistan

So much for the much touted "progress" in Afghanistan - when one reads this piece from The Guardian how about one-third young children in the south in the war-torn country suffer from malnutrition.

"Around a third of young children in southern Afghanistan are acutely malnourished, with a level of deprivation similar to that found in famine zones, a government survey has found, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid that has been poured into the region.

Around a million Afghans under five are acutely malnourished, according to the UN-backed survey. By far the worst affected area is the southern region – centred around Kandahar and Helmand – that was the Taliban's birthplace and has seen some of the heaviest fighting of the decade-long war.

"What's shocking is that this is really very high by global standards," said Michael Keating, deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan. "This is the kind of malnutrition you associate with Africa and some of the most deprived parts of the world, not with an area that has received so much international attention and assistance."

The Afghanistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) found 29.5% of children are suffering from acute malnutrition there. A level of more than 30% among young children is considered one sign of a famine."

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