City of shellfire and starvation

Women crossing from an area controlled by the Rapid Support Forces in Omdurman, on the western edge of Khartoum, Sudan. — Ivor Prickett/The New York Times

THE children died one after the other. Twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital, Khartoum.

Abdo, an 18-month-old boy, had been rushed to a clinic by his mother as he was dying. His ribs protruded from his withered body. The next day, a doctor laid him out on a blanket with a teddy bear motif, his eyes closed.