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.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have described it as “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have agreed 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 particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. 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 women bearing children are confined.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“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 contested deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
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 skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“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.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the more than 676 million women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates 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,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
