Dozens of women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody 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, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, 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.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
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 Collapse of Safe Childbirth
A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” notes a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
