Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case 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 are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to 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 standard wartime hazards. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied 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 attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, 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 scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
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 restricted due to 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, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
