Four months apart, Selwa Zakaria lost her two daughters to hunger. The youngest, aged one and a half, died in the arms of doctors a few hours after being admitted to Al-Shuhada hospital in Bahri, north of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. When she returned for a consultation, her mother wandered past the doors of the nutrition ward, looking haggard. Her slender figure, draped in a blue tunic, seemed to float through the crowded hall.

On rows of chairs, ghostly bodies waited. Bones were wrapped in a thin layer of skin. Time felt suspended, their movements were so slow. An old man with an emaciated face held his hands to his temples. They looked like dried leaves with prominent veins that could be torn apart by a sudden gesture. His lips moved, but no words escaped. Before killing, hunger swallowed words.

Around them, the doctors were busy. They were exhausted. "Patients are arriving in critical condition. On the maternity ward, it's a disaster. Mothers have nothing to eat, no milk left. They bring us babies who are close to death," said 27-year-old pediatrician Fatima Haroun, who had "never seen such a calamity."

Each child that passed through her department weighed as little as a feather. A nine-month-old baby is placed on a scale. "Barely 6 kg. Arm circumference 7.5." The safety limit is set at 13.5 cm. Below 11.5, the child is considered life-threatening. "The maximum we received was 12.5!" the pediatrician warned. A few milk powder and peanut paste kits had been delivered. She had to ration. The tiny quantities "only postpone the problem" – a reprieve of a few days.

A week earlier, Haroun received a family who, for every meal, diluted Nile silt on the plate with a little flour and water. She burst into tears: "It's a level 1 famine, nothing else. Nobody realizes the seriousness of the cases we receive here. And we're talking about just one neighborhood! Elsewhere, whole areas of the country are inaccessible. People are dying in their own homes. Nobody wants to face up to this reality."

In September, 20 children under the age of five died in this field hospital, the only remaining public facility in northern Khartoum. The original building was looted and partly burnt down by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). At the end of September, the regular army reclaimed the area. While the structure was being renovated, all services and medical staff were transferred to a health center with a derisory capacity given the scale of the needs.

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