A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were in the midst of labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not standard wartime hazards. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a significant underestimate, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area was isolated from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is limited by a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
