🔗 Share this article

A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.

Present at the hospital after dark, 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 appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

While all major powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data uncover an alarming level of violence: 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 are not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.

Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.

Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to community survival.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.

Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed 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 rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.

“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied 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 may hit a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.

This lack of accountability has led to a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.”

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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.

In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.

The Collapse of Safe Childbirth

A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” notes a legal researcher.

“There is no absolute protection 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.”