A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “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 one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
While all major powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets fired at 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 aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers 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,” asserts 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. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition increasing drastically, 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 damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
