A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital 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.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records reveal an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering 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 standard wartime hazards. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights 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 critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, 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,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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, 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 End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“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,” observes a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed 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 now become a standard defence.”
