Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not natural consequences of war. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands 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 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in 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.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“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 rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility can be under attack now,” 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 within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Other Conflict Zones
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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed 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 preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”
