Thirty women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place 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. Militiamen stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover 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 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.
This lack of accountability has created a “environment where anything goes,” explains 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 lacked access to humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition increasing drastically, 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 struck a baby care unit, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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 shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
