Leading UK charities have launched a joint winter appeal to save the lives of 8 million people at risk of starvation in Afghanistan, as aid workers in the country warn of a “small window of opportunity” to intervene. A combination of conflict, economic collapse, drought and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the country to a tipping point, according to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), the umbrella group of 15 aid agencies behind the appeal. Fiona McSheehy, director of humanitarian operations for Save the Children UK, said: “There’s a very small window of opportunity for us to support the population of Afghanistan. The situation is very bad at the moment. Winter is coming very quickly now. “I’ve witnessed emergencies around the world, and I can honestly say this is the worst situation I have seen.” The launch of the appeal on Wednesday comes as the International Rescue Committee (IRC) predicted that near universal poverty will take hold in Afghanistan next year, with 97% of the population at risk of living below the poverty line. Afghanistan has topped the IRC’s list of countries most at risk of a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in 2022, with Ethiopia and Yemen ranked second and third. In a briefing, David Miliband, the president of the IRC, called on the US and the global community to show “more urgency” towards the situation in Afghanistan. “It’s way past time to sound the alarm,” he said. “I think it’s very important to say that just as a matter of principle, trading off the needs of the Afghan people against the popularity or otherwise of the government is wrong, but in this case, it’s going to be the donor nations who get the blame for what happens. And so there’s an instrumental reason as well as a moral reason for far more urgency.” The IRC said the UK should increase aid and use its diplomatic influence to press the authorities in Afghanistan to ensure that the rights of women and girls are upheld. Women and girls face a new chapter in their suffering, it added. Vicki Aken, country director of the IRC in Afghanistan, said girls as young as six were being sold into early marriage as it meant one less mouth to feed. “The World Food Programme estimates that the average labourer gets roughly one day of work a week, not even close to being enough to feed a family, which is why we are seeing negative coping mechanisms, such as girls as young as six or seven years old being sold into early marriage just to keep the rest of the family alive,” she said. “When I arrived in Afghanistan in 2017, the number of people living in poverty was about 50%. It is now at 97%.” She said the freezing of humanitarian funding had led to the collapse of the healthcare system and was the main reason schools have struggled to open. “With people facing severe food shortages with children with weakened immune systems, we need to immediately be able to provide assistance, such as blankets, fuel and winter clothes so they can just survive the winter. “Humanitarian aid is merely a sticking plaster to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. It will be a complete system failure if governments fail to stay engaged with Afghanistan and engage with longer-term solutions.”