Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, analysis showed that half of all 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 destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This lack of accountability has created a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
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
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“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.
“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 often been cited as an excuse.”
