🔗 Share this article

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 in the midst of labor.

Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “A massacre was taking place 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. Militiamen forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data uncover 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 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not natural consequences of war. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.

Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.

Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to societal repopulation and recovery.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.

Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals were out of reach.

“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 contested deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter 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 extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.

“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.

“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.

This absence of consequences has led to a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”

Other Conflict Zones

In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.

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 End of Safe Deliveries

A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”