BBC News - Afghan aid fails to feed the hungry

Alla Gul says she never wanted handouts. But she and her husband - a contract farmer who gets a portion of the produce from the land he works - always believed they would lead a comfortable life.

Now, he simply can't earn enough to feed the family.

Dr Aslam Fawad is despairing. Each day he walks the malnutrition ward, watching more and more patients arrive from across this otherwise fertile farming district.

Poverty is so deep that even many farmers are unable to feed their families.

Unicef figures show that an extensive vaccination campaign has helped more children survive, but Dr Fawad says because of the dire state of the economy, some patients keep returning, time after time.

"The malnutrition problem in Afghanistan, and especially Parwan province, is very bad. That's because of the years of fighting, the damage to our infrastructure and rising unemployment.

"It's all helped to make things worse," he said.

After seeding Ahmed Rashid's BBC article, I get the picture that there's certainly a state of despair...