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 experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Although world powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an alarming level of violence: 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.
“These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has created a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
