Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were in the midst of 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 executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records show 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 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.
Last year, analysis showed that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, posing a long-term threat to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling 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 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” 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 within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition spiking dangerously, 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 struck a baby care unit, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
