During the worst of the war in Sudan's capital Khartoum, each neighbourhood learned a morbid choreography the sound of a blast sending everyday people springing into action to save as many lives as possible.
Young men sprinted to the impact site, transporting the dead and wounded on scooters, bicycles and bulldozers. Anyone with even modest training reported to the ER, performing triage in pools of blood. The soup kitchen frantically turned out meals for the wounded. An engineer turned undertaker prepared shrouds.
Nasser, a 24-year-old nurse, has been based at Al-Nao Hospital in Omdurman for two years. He recalls his hardest moments, which seem to constantly run through his mind: the mother he spent two hours resuscitating who died in his arms; the 10-year-old who said she had a stomachache while her intestines spilled out; the hospital bombing that killed his friend.
Osama Ismail, a 25-year-old delivery hero, has spent most of the war on the street, braving gunfire and mortar shells to get medicine and food to those in need. Hoda Makki, 60, has been running a community kitchen for three years, cooking massive pots of food for the wounded and their families.
Ali Gebbai, a 38-year-old mechanical engineer, has been shrouding and burying around 7,000 people in the past three years. He and his team would post a photo to social media in case loved ones saw it, wash the body according to Muslim custom, and bury the fallen.
