Munzir is hunched over in a chair when we get to the office of a displacement camp for the undocumented in Sudan’s capital.

He looks defeated and sullen. His leg is wrapped in gauze and his crutches are leaning against the wall by the side of the chair.

Two months ago, a stray bullet hit his leg in army-held territory in Omdurman and he was taken to the largest remaining functioning hospital in the area, Al Nao Hospital.

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After being discharged, and unable to walk without support, he was brought to Osman Makkawi shelter for patients with no home to return to.

Here, he has joined the missing. The camp is home to dozens of wounded civilians who do not have ID or a way to contact their loved ones.

For two years of war, Munzir has not been able to go to his house in southern Khartoum as battles raged for control of the capital. Bridges were targeted by snipers belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and uncrossable for civilians.

At least 50,000 people have been separated from their families during the first two years of Sudan’s civil war, according to local human rights groups.

This shocking statistic is likely a gross underestimate and has remained staggeringly high even as hundreds of detainees were freed after the army reclaimed Khartoum from the RSF in late March.

Munzir was told his family fled to their ancestral home in Damazin, eastern Sudan and had no means to make the journey across the White Nile Bridge connecting Omdurman to the heart of the capital once it became accessible.

In the murkiness of war, one man has been tirelessly working to change Munzir’s sad reality.

Mohamed Alfatih is the head of a charity called Resilience. He runs Osman Makkawi camp through donations and has launched a social media campaign to find Munzir’s family.

“We have reunited 287 people with their families and we are set on Munzir becoming our 288th.”

Through Facebook, he has managed to connect with Munzir’s uncle who told Mohamed that his mother is still at home in Mayo, southern Khartoum. But there are no guarantees – Mayo is still rife with militants and the army is known to move civilians around for security reasons.

“We work with facts. We have received this information from his uncle and this is the first real tip we get about Munzir’s mother’s whereabouts,” Mohamed says.

“We hope to God that he finds his mother at home.”

This information is enough for Mohamed to take Munzir to check.

It’s Munzir’s first journey home since a month before the war started in April 2023. Every few moments he says: “I just pray my mother is home.”

As he crosses White Nile Bridge into al-Mogran – the landmark Khartoum location at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles – he looks around with wide eyes.

“Two years without seeing Khartoum or the Nile. I am just happy to see it. We used to bathe here on the banks.”

As we drive into Khartoum, he starts crying. These are tears of joy. He cannot believe he is back home and heading towards his family. Only the destruction around us can interrupt the relief and his crying turns into a look of shock and despair.

“I cannot believe the damage. I heard about it but seeing it is chilling.”

As we get closer to his neighbourhood, he is nervous and overwhelmed. We will have to check different displacement shelters around the area if his family are not at home.

“What if she’s not there?” I ask.

“Patience. I will have to have patience,” he replies with the thought darkening his face.

We finally make it to the house. Munzir leaps out and moves quickly towards the door with his crutches.

The outside area of his house is closed off with white corrugated iron that looks unfamiliar to him.

He taps on the door and looks out with stress and uncertainty as we wait for seconds that feel like a long minute.

There is a sound of children in the house and the door opens. A little boy looks up and there is a pause of shock before he breaks out into a smile. “Hey!” he says and runs back into the house out of sight.

He alerts an adult and runs back out as a woman comes into the front yard from inside the house.

“My son!” Khadija yells. “My son!”

She grabs hold of him and wails as two years of anguish and worry pour out of her.

After five full minutes of crying, she finally starts to speak.

“I’ve been waiting for him for so long. Losing my son made me sick, I could barely walk and had to creep against the walls to keep myself up. I thought I would die,” she tells us, weakened from the sobbing and long sleepless nights.

Her sister Nagwa comes to see her nephew whom she raised like a son. She greets us as she walks into the living room with her eyes searching for Munzir.

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“Munzir!” she exclaims as she hugs him with sobs. “We were searching for you but had no money to find you.”

From the yard, we hear celebrations break out in the neighbourhood. Streams of guests start to arrive to congratulate the family and greet Munzir.

One after the other, he shakes the hands of his neighbours.

For this family, the worst of the war is over. Their son has come home, wounded but alive, and the days ahead of shelling, drone strikes and rampant crime will never compare to the pain of thinking he may be dead.

A glimmer of warmth and relief in the relentless cycle of violence in Sudan’s war.

The cardinals have arrived, the finishing touches are being made; Vatican City is preparing for an election like no other.

On Wednesday, the papal conclave begins and many visitors to St Peter’s Square already have a clear view on what they would like the outcome to be.

“I want a liberal pope,” says Joyce who has travelled to Rome from the US.

“My number one is Pierbattista Pizzaballa,” says blogger Teodorita Giovannella referencing the 60-year-old Italian cardinal.

Rome resident Michele Rapinesi thinks the next pope will be the Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, who was Pope Francis’ number two.

Although the job of selecting the next pontiff lies with 133 cardinal electors, Ms Giovannella and Mr Rapinesi are among 75,000 Italians playing an online game trying to predict who they’ll pick.

Fantapapa is a similar format to fantasy football, but teams are made up of prospective pontiffs.

Ms Giovannella has chosen three popular Italians as her favourites: Cardinals Pizzaballa, Zuppi and Parolin.

After 47 years she wants an Italian pope but believes an Asian or African would be a good “plot twist”.

Despite the growing speculation and excitement, for the cardinal electors the papal conclave is the serious and sombre process of choosing the next leader of the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion followers.

To keep the vote secret, they are locked in the Sistine Chapel which has been swept for hidden cameras, recording equipment and bugs.

The windows are covered to keep the outside world out and to stop drones from spying.

Mobile phones are banned and signal jammers have been installed to help stop any information being leaked.

Ballots are burned after they are cast and a plume of coloured smoke shows people if a new pope has been chosen.

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The cardinal who is elected will become one of the most powerful men in the world and will set the course for the Catholic Church for years to come, making decisions which will affect the lives of millions of people worldwide.

Pope Francis’ 12-year reign pulled the church in a more progressive direction.

His fight for migrants and climate change made him a muse for Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta.

He met him five times and painted more than 30 pictures of him, celebrating his life on the walls of Rome.

One shows Francis with a catapult shooting out hearts.

“It depicts the strong love he had for people,” Mr Pallotta explains.

In another, he wears a cape and is depicted as a superhero.

“I hope the new pope continues the way of Pope Francis and remembers the poor people of the world,” he says.

Whether the next pontiff is another pope of the people, a progressive or conservative will soon be decided by the cardinals.

Their choice will determine if the Catholic Church continues down the route set by Francis or takes a different path.

Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.

According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.

The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.

On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.

Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.

Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.

They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.

It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.

The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.

It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.

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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.

A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.