A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. 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, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind declaring certain actions a genocide.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting 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 seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” 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 faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
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 inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, 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 preventable with routine care, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
