Thirty women were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility 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 were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.
An investigation of records show an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition rising sharply, 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, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes 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 ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
