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 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 explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe 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,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the more than 676 million women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 limited by a lack of access 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 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 preventable with routine care, 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 without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”
