🔗 Share this article

A group of thirty mothers 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 actively in labor.

Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”

This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation 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. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

An investigation of records uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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 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 countless of women bearing children are confined.

Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. 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 substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.

Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to community survival.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.

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 delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.

“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 trying to alter birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.

“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.

“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.

This lack of accountability has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, 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 rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, 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 avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher.

“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”