A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 violent acts against places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
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 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, analysis showed that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a devastating pattern.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences 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 succumb from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states 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 minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This lack of accountability has created a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
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 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 been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
