More than 22 million Afghans will suffer “acute food insecurity” this winter, UN agencies said, warning the already unstable country faces one of the world‘s worst humanitarian crises.

The crisis is already bigger in scale than that facing Yemen or Syria, and worse than any food insecurity emergency apart from the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said.

According to the statement issued by the World Food Program and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, one in two Afghans faces Phase 3 “crisis” or Phase 4 “emergency” food shortages.

Phase 4 is one step below a famine, and officials said that Afghanistan - already struggling to emerge from a 20-year civil war - is facing its worst winter in a decade. (AFP)