A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
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, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling targeting 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 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“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.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially 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 spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed 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
A large proportion of mother 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, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” says 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 ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
