The city’s last functioning hospital has been bombed over 30 times. Between 30 and 40 severely malnourished children arrive every day, seeking help. There’s nothing to give them but animal feed.

“Even we’re eating animal feed,” said Dr. Omar Selik, tilting his camera during a video call to show his meal: a sludgy paste made from pressed peanuts that is usually given to cows, camels and donkeys. “There’s nothing else.”

El Fasher is the worst battleground of Sudan’s brutal civil war. For nearly 18 months the city, in the western region of Darfur, has been under siege by paramilitaries trying to starve it into submission. Fighters have erected a 20-mile earthen wall around its boundaries.

That leaves residents with a dire set of choices. Stay, and risk being bombed or starved. Run, and risk being killed, robbed or sexually assaulted.

“People seem to have forgotten us,” said Dr. Selik, breaking into tears as he spoke. “Oh my God, it’s a very painful story.”