BENADIR HOSPITAL is a chunky block of a building in downtown Mogadishu, built in the 1970s by the Chinese. It has cracked windows, ceiling fans that don’t turn and long, ghostly hallways that stink of human excrement and diesel fuel — all that the nurses have to wash the floors. Each morning, legions of starving people trudge in, the victims of Somalia’s spreading famine. Many have journeyed from hundreds of miles away. They spent every last dollar and every last calorie to make it here, and when they arrive, they simply collapse on the floor. Benadir’s few doctors and nurses are all volunteers and all exhausted, and many wear tattered, bloodied smocks. The minute I walked in, I had a bad feeling I would find what I was looking for.

As the East Africa correspondent for The New York Times, my assignment has been to chronicle the current famine in Somalia, one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the last two decades, hitting one of the most forlorn and troubled countries in modern times. My job is to seek out the suffering and write about it and to analyze the causes and especially the response, which has been woefully inadequate by all accounts, though not totally hopeless.

In Benadir, there is a room full of old blue cots, one after another, where the sickest children lie. On each bed, a little life is passing away. Some children cry, but most are quiet. The skin on their feet and hands is peeling off. All their bones show, like skeletons covered in parchment. I was standing just a few feet away from Kufow Ali Abdi, a destitute nomad, as he looked down on his dying daughter, and when the time came, there was no mystery, no fuss.

I watched Mr. Kufow carefully unhook the I.V. that was attached to her shriveled body and then wrap her up in blue cloth. Her name was Kadija and she was 3 years old and probably not more than 20 pounds. Mr. Kufow walked out of the room, lightly carrying Kadija’s body in his arms.