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Warning: This piece includes information that some readers may find distressing

The mother has gone without food in several days. She remains quiet, her eyes distant as she looks aimlessly across the medical facility.

Held close, motionless and severely malnourished, rests her three-year child, the little girl.

She seems numb to the sounds of the other young children around her. "I wish she would cry," the twenty-five-year-old mother explains the observers, looking at her child. "She has been silent in days."

The medical center is one of the final operational hospitals in Sudan's capital, the capital city, ravaged by the internal conflict which has been ongoing since April 2023. Numerous families have journeyed long distances to get here for specialist care.

The malnutrition unit is occupied with young patients who are too weak to fight illness, their mothers by their side, helpless.

Cries here can't be soothed and each one cuts deep.

The mother and her relatives were compelled to flee after fighting between the national military and the armed group RSF reached their home about 200km south-west of the capital.

"[The RSF] seized everything we owned - our money and our livestock - directly out of our hands," she explains. "We fled with only our lives."

With no money or food, the mother's children began to suffer.

She looks shocked as she describes their previous existence. "Before the conflict, our house was filled with goodness. We had livestock, dairy and fruit. But now we have no resources."

Humanitarian Situation

Sudan is presently experiencing one of the world's worst relief crises.

Based on the UN, 3 million minors under the age five are severely undernourished. The hospitals that are left are overloaded.

The facility offers care and basic treatment free of charge.

Nevertheless, the lifesaving medicines needed by the young patients in the malnutrition unit must be purchased by their families.

Masajed is a sister, she and her sister Manahil were brought to the medical center simultaneously. But the family could only afford antibiotics for one child.

The mother had to make the devastating choice – she chose Manahil.

"I wish they could together heal and develop," her grief-stricken voice breaks, "and that I could see them moving and playing together as they did previously.

"I simply desire them together to recover," she states, cradling her failing daughter.

"I am alone. I have nothing. I have just faith."

Chances of recovery here are low. For the families on this ward the conflict has stolen all they had. They have been left with no means and no means to purchase the treatments that would preserve their offspring.

Upon departure, the doctor states not one of the patients in this unit will recover.

Across the entirety of the capital, children's futures have been transformed by the civil war.

Urban Destruction

What began as an eruption of hostilities between loyalists loyal to military leaders – military commander the general and paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – quickly engulfed the city.

During a two-year period – up to March of this year when the army retook control - the capital was dominated by conflict as opposing fighters clashed.

Khartoum, previously a hub of culture and business on the shores of the River Nile, transformed into a war zone. Tanks rolled into neighbourhoods. Military aircraft flew overhead. Non-combatants were caught between crossfire, artillery bombardments and aerial attacks.

This occurs in this destroyed environment, within the quiet of destruction, that the delicate sound of a child rises from the debris.

12-year-old the boy wheels himself through the wreckage, past destroyed cars, military vehicles, broken houses and abandoned ammunition.

"I want to return home," he sings softly to himself as his wheelchair rolls over shattered fragments and metal debris. "I can no longer see my home. Where's my residence?"

Individual Stories

His voice, fragile but determined, holds both a sorrow for what has been destroyed and a subtle optimism that one day, he may finally go home.

Within a structure currently being used as a shelter, the boy's mother the woman describes me about what existence was like under paramilitary occupation.

"The situation were extremely challenging," she explains. "We were unable to switch on our electricity at evening - it seemed like we were criminals. We didn't light flames. We remained stationary at all at night."

She remains next to her son in a room lined with single beds.

"At any moment, whether you were resting or taking a shower, upright or sitting, you find them [the RSF] watching closely."

Numerous residents escaped the capital, but the boy and his mother had no means to leave. To survive, they traded lentils on the roads.

Subsequently a particular day, as they labored side by side, a drone attacked.

"I glanced at him and he was losing blood. There was blood all around," the mother recalls. "I began losing consciousness. I forced myself to remain conscious because I knew if I fainted, I would lose him forever."

The boy's legs were badly damaged. After hours of pain, they made it medical care.

"I kept praying: 'I beg God, take my life in place of his legs,'" she cries.

But doctors could not preserve his legs. Both had to be removed just below the joint.

"He would wake up and question: 'Why did you let them cut my limbs?'" She lowers her gaze, her face showing regret, "I couldn't answer."

The two the mother and her child cry, tormented by the recollection of what occurred to them. It is made worse by understanding that prosthetic limbs could provide Zaher a opportunity at his previous childhood, but his mother cannot afford them.

Regarding the boy, the recollection of what transpired is too painful to discuss.

He only shares a single dream. "I wish I could have artificial limbs so I can play football with my friends like I did before. That's all."

Stolen Childhoods

Children in Khartoum have been deprived not just of their childhoods but of secure places to enjoy and be young.

Educational institutions, sports fields and recreation areas are now shattered, with broken evidence of a existence taken by war.

"It was very nice here," states 16-year-old Ahmed looking around a ruined amusement area and recreation space.