DADAAB REFUGEE CAMP, Kenya

WHAT’S most heartbreaking about starving children isn’t the patches of hair that fall out, the mottled skin and painful sores, the bones poking through taut skin. No, it’s the emptiness in their faces.

These children are conscious and their eyes follow you — but lethargically, devoid of expression, without tears or screams or even frowns. A starving child shuts off emotions, directing every calorie to keep vital organs functioning.

The United Nations warns that the famine in the Horn of Africa could kill 750,000 people in the coming months, and tens of thousands have already died. In a German aid hospital here in Dadaab, Dr. Daniel Muchiri showed four wards full of children suffering from severe malnutrition. Even among the rare children who reach this well-equipped hospital, one dies each day on average — and Malyun Muhammad may soon become one of them.

Malyun, 2 years old and weighing just 14 pounds, was lying listlessly on a bed, her eyes following me but utterly blank.