Atrocities mount daily. Promised aid does not arrive. Why has the west turned its back on Sudan?

‘I miss my mother so much. I want this to stop’: Awadin Mohammed, 10, in hospital. The rest of her family died in the explosion that nearly killed her. Photograph: Mark Townsend/The Observer

A friend had gone missing. Nothing unusual in Sudan’s ruinous war, but Hitham Mohund knew it was vital to act quickly. However, in an abandoned home near the Nile River he stopped searching after making a grisly discovery: wedged inside a bathroom were three bodies. Hands tied, eyes staring upwards.

“They were shot in the chest,” said the 28-year-old, as he walked towards Maigoma Street, a dusty thoroughfare in north Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.