Dozens of women were huddled for safety 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 explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident 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 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Although world powers have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated 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 destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states 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 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 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 suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, 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.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” observes a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”
