Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Although world powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records reveal 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, analysis showed that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is scarce because of a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”
