A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
While all major powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor 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 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They constitute a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights 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 severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“We are being singled out,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.”
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 scarce because of a lack of access 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 End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
