Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place 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 African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety 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. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of women bearing children are confined.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling 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 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This lack of accountability has led to a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially 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 increasing drastically, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.
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 End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
