Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Although world powers have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. 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 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 standard wartime hazards. 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 pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at 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 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
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
A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
