Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
While all major powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within 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 accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states 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 problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” comments 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 close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has created a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed 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 often been cited as an excuse.”
