A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Present at the hospital after dark, 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 states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records show 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.
“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. 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
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger 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.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says 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 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“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 truth of the matter 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 close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has led to a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
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 End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear 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 may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
