A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
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, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, posing a long-term threat to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes targeting 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 attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” notes 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 now become a standard defence.”
