In April 2023, many were caught off guard when war broke out in the middle of Khartoum, the sprawling capital city of Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, had been welcomed into the fold of Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) only to turn on it and move to seize power. Wars usually start on borders, coming into countries from the outside, but this conflict erupted in the heart of Sudan, which perhaps explains why it has been so devastating and difficult to stop.

Sudan now has the most perilous humanitarian situation in the world: more than nine million people have been displaced, and two million of them have fled the country. Vast swaths of the country have become frontlines in the conflict. According to figures for July 2024, more than 750,000 people are on the brink of starvation and death, and both sides have been restricting access to food supplies, a tactic used as a weapon of war.

At a malnutrition center set up at a hospital in Port Sudan, I saw Bara’a Ahmed, aged 20 months. Her extended family had been displaced from the Khartoum area in 2023. Bara’a was underfed, became weaker and then contracted cholera which has spread with the mass displacements. Doctors were worried that she might not survive. I watched as they struggled to put a cannula in her tiny arm, barely bigger than the doctor’s thumb. I found it hard to fight back my emotions as I focused on her pallid, pained face. Bara’a pulled through and two weeks later was said to be doing well, but seeing her and dozens of other children suffering from malnutrition left me in shock that this could be happening in 2024.

The estimated death toll of many thousands is impossible to verify as much of the killing has been in areas under RSF control. RSF forces have been accused of carrying out massacres, mainly against Masalit and other non-Arab minorities in the Darfur region, repeating the cycle of ethnic cleansing spearheaded under former president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in the early 2000s. The accusation that the United Arab Emirates is the main supporter of the RSF is an “open secret;” according to experts, without UAE financial and military backing, the RSF could not have waged the war the way they have.

In Omdurman, the twin city to Khartoum on the opposite side of the Nile, we saw complete devastation reminiscent of Mosul and Raqqa in Syria after the brutal war to oust ISIS in 2017 and 2018. Endless neighborhoods and streets have been laid to waste; every house appears to have been looted. The war is not over, and every day there is shelling back and forth across the river. Few hospitals have remained operational and the health system is struggling to cope with the number of malnourished children and war wounded, as well as normal medical requirements. At Al Nau hospital we met countless civilians who had been injured in the fight for Khartoum. Hassan Adam (14) was recovering after being shot in the stomach, and had only just started to eat again. He was severely malnourished and so weak his mother had to help him sit up to eat. As I quietly photographed, he motioned for me to share the meal with him. It was a touching gesture, one which seemed to personify the resilience and dignity of so many people we met.