In brief
Touma, a mother in war-torn Sudan, faces a heartbreaking decision for her twin daughters suffering from severe malnutrition. With the healthcare system overwhelmed and resources scarce, she can only afford treatment for one child, and her choice puts a spotlight on the heartbreaking reality of the ongoing civil war that has ravaged the country and left families desperately seeking help.
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.
The malnutrition ward is filled with children who are too weak to fight disease, their mothers by their bedside, helpless.
Sudan is currently experiencing one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
According to the UN, three million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. The hospitals that are left are overwhelmed.
Touma had to make the impossible choice – she chose her other daughter, Manahil, for treatment as she could only afford antibiotics for one.
I wish they could both recover and grow, her grief-sticken voice cracks, and that I could watch them walking and playing together as they did before. I just want them both to get better, she laments.
As we leave, the doctor says none of the children in this ward will survive. Across Khartoum, children's lives have been rewritten by the civil war.
