Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
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 genocide allegations.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.
This absence of consequences has created a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
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 restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, 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 devoid of emergency care.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
