Dozens of 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.
Present at the hospital after dark, 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 explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
While all major powers have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences 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 inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks 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 denied deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“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 faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has fostered a “culture of impunity,” argues 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 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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”
