Warning: this material contains details that may be upsetting
Touma hasn’t eaten for days. She sits silent, eyes dull, gaze aimlessly directed into the emptiness of the hospital room.
Her three-year-old daughter Masajed lies motionless in her arms, severely starved.
Tuma does not seem to respond to the cries of the other small children around her.
“I wish she would cry,” says the 25-year-old mother, looking at her daughter. “She hasn’t cried for days.”
Bashayer Hospital is one of the few still operating in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, devastated by civil war since April 2023. Many people go a long way to receive specialised care here.
The undernourished children’s ward is filled with babies too weak to fight off illness. The sitting area next to each bed m was full of good things. We had cattle, milk, dates. And now we have nothing,” says the woman.
Today, Sudan is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
According to the UN, three million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. The few hospitals that continue to operate are overcrowded.
Bashayer Hospital provides care and basic treatment free of charge.
However, vital medicines for children in the family’s malnutrition ward must be purchased at the family’s own expense.
Masajed has a twin sister, Manail, who was brought to the hospital together. But the family could only pay for antibiotics for one child.
Tumi had to make an impossible choice – she chose Manail.
“I dream that they both recover and grow up,” her voice trembles with pain, “so that I can see them walking and playing together, like the
Khartoum, once a centre of culture and commerce on the banks of the Nile, had become a battlefield. Tanks rolled through residential neighbourhoods. Fighters roared overhead. Civilians are caught between crossfire, artillery shelling and drone strikes.
It is amidst these ruins, in the silence of the shattered city, that the fragile voice of a child is heard from beneath the rubble.
Twelve-year-old Zaher rolls his wheelchair independently through the rubble – past burnt-out cars, destroyed houses and forgotten bullets.
“I’m going home,” he sings softly under his breath as his chair rolls over glass and rubble. “I can’t see my home anymore. Where is my home? “
His voice – brittle but full of strength – carries at the same time a longing for the lost and a quiet hope that one day he will return home.
In the building that is now quot;.
Zaher’s legs were severely injured. After hours of suffering, they made it to the hospital.
“I prayed all the time:” God, take my life instead of his legs “, says the mother through tears.
But doctors could not save his legs. Both had to be amputated just below the knees.
“He would wake up and ask, ‘Why did you let them cut off my legs?”‘” – she lowers her eyes, her face full of guilt. “I couldn’t answer anything.”
Both Habib and her son are crying, tired of remembering. It’s even harder for them to think that prosthetics could give the boy his childhood back, but they can’t afford them.
For Zaher, the memories are too painful to talk about.
He has only one dream: “I want to have artificial legs so I can play football with my friends like I used to. That’s all.”
The children of Khartoum were not only deprived of childhood – they had but all day and laughed relentlessly. But when I came back after the war, I couldn’t believe it was the same place,” he says.
Now Ahmed lives and works here, clearing the ruins after the war. He earns $50 for 30 days of continuous work.
The money helps support him, his mother, his grandmother and one of his brothers.
He has lost six other brothers – like many Sudanese who don’t know where their loved ones are. He lowers his eyes and says he doesn’t know if they are alive.
The war has destroyed many families.
“I have already found the remains of fifteen bodies,” Ahmed says.
Most of the remains found have already been buried, but some bones still lie in the open.
Ahmed walks over to a human jaw, picking it up.
“It’s horrible. My hands are shaking,” he says.
He shows another bone and, holding it near his leg, says: “This is a femur lassi that volunteers set up in an abandoned house.
The children are loudly answering questions, writing on the blackboard, singing songs – even crazy ones.
Hearing children’s laughter and seeing learning in a country where there is little room for childhood is like breathing life.
When we ask what childhood must be like, Zaher’s classmates innocently answer, which the war has not yet managed to destroy: “One must play, study, read.”
But the memory of war is around.
“We should not be afraid of bombs and bullets,” Zaher adds.” We have to be brave.”
Their teacher, Mrs Amal, has been teaching for 45 years. She has never seen children with such deep trauma.
They were very affected by the war,” she says.
Their mental state, their language – everything has changed. They speak the language of militants: swearing, instantly recognisable: ‘Real Madrid’.” Favourite player? “Vinicius.”
Playing on his knees is painful and dangerous – infections can start. But he doesn’t care.
Football and friendship have saved him. They give him joy and escape from painful reality. Nevertheless, he still dreams of prosthetics.
“I want to be repaired so I can go home and go to school,” Zaher says.
Material prepared with Abdelrahman A. Butaleb, Abdelrahman Altaeb and Liam Vera