Thirty women were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “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, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
While all major powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not natural consequences of war. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, 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 in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, 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 genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach.
“We’ve had rockets hitting 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 damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says 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 can strike a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially 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 rising sharply, 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 hit a neonatal ward, 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 End of Safe Deliveries
A large proportion of mother deaths are preventable with routine care, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”
