A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Although world powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an shocking trend: 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 are not natural consequences of war. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights 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 succumb from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, 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 targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 restricted due to a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked 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
The majority of childbirth fatalities are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
