The battle to save Central African Republic’s starving children

In the overcrowded hospital grounds, a father called Theodore hugs his young daughter who is suffering from malnutrition.

His wife is in hospital after having a nervous breakdown, he says, after the couple’s first child died. He struggles to earn enough money to buy food.

In general, children are hospitalised for a little over a week until their weight recovers.

But not all survive, with some losing the fight against severe malnutrition or disease — the lasting consequences of violence and poverty in a nation wracked by conflict.