KHARTOUM, April 27 -- 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.

"Abandoned" by the world, according to the UN's top official in the country, Sudanese people have mobilised in vast volunteer networks to face the horrors of the war between the army and the paramilitar...