Dozens of women 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 experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Although world powers have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data show 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not natural consequences of war. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
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 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences 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 are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach.
“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected 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 attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” notes 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 few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This lack of accountability has led to a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm 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 destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to tear apart the social fabric,” notes a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe 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.”
