For a week, eight-year-old Mohamed has suffered the pain of shrapnel stuck in his arm. But he is one of the lucky ones in Sudan's western city El-Fasher, which is under paramilitary attack.

"One of our neighbours used to be a nurse. She helped us stop the bleeding," Mohamed's father, Issa Said, 27, told AFP via satellite connection under a total communications blackout.

Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.