A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, 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 explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
While all major powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an shocking trend: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of 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 a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.
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 having children by the roadside because hospitals were out of reach.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“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.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition spiking dangerously, 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, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal 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 lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
