Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed 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 highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.
An investigation of records reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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.
Ukraine's Ordeal
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 occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
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 End of Safe Deliveries
A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” observes 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 ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
