Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were in the midst of labor.
On duty during that fateful 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 recounts. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering 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 several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They constitute a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, 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 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“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 contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed 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,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues 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.”
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 inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, resulting in tragic loss of life.
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 Collapse of Safe Childbirth
A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities 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.”
