A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
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 seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 violent acts against places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.
Last year, analysis showed that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets 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 aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This lack of accountability has fostered a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
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 scarce because of a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence 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 collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” says a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection 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.”
