Warning: This piece contains details that some readers may find distressing.
Touma hasn't eaten in days. She sits silently, her eyes glassy as she stares aimlessly across the hospital ward.
In her arms, motionless and severely malnourished, lies her three-year-old daughter, Masajed.
Touma seems numb to the cries of the other young children around her. 'I wish she would cry,' the 25-year-old mother tells us, looking at her daughter. 'She hasn't cried in days.'
Bashaer Hospital is one of the last functioning hospitals in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, devastated by the civil war which has been raging since April 2023. Many have travelled hours to get here for specialist care.
With no money or food, Touma's children began to suffer. She had to make the impossible choice to prioritize one twin over the other due to a lack of funds.
'I wish they could both recover and grow,' her grief-stricken voice cracks, 'and that I could watch them walking and playing together as they did before.' In a country where three million children are acutely malnourished and hospitals are overwhelmed, the heartbreaking choices of mothers like Touma reflect the bitter reality faced by families in Sudan.
The civil war has left children without the protection of childhood; many have lost family members, homes, and their health. Survival rates are dwindling in the war-torn nation, leaving mothers like Touma with nothing but despair.
