Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were in the midst of labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations 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.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger 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 declaring certain actions a genocide.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling hitting 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 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.”
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 limited by a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”
