A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
Working that 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 states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have called 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
Although world powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, 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 a factor in genocide allegations.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling hitting 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 aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” 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. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 scarce because of a inability to report 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 End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” 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 now become a standard defence.”
