The ground shook as another airstrike slammed down nearby, a thunderclap ripping through the makeshift field clinic. Inside, panic surged. A baby wailed from one corner; a mother screamed for help in another. Amid toppled boxes of therapeutic food, I held a skeletal boy no older than 4 — limbs limp, eyes sunken. Just moments before, I had managed to feed him a spoonful of nutritional, peanut-rich paste. As I was readying another, an explosion knocked the food from my hands and scattered dust into the boy’s open mouth. He didn’t flinch; he was too weak even to cry.
It was the end of June. I cradled the boy in silence, surrounded by war.
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