🔗 Share this article

Thirty women had taken refuge 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.

Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.

An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data reveal an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.

“This is not standard wartime hazards. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.

Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.

Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.

Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.

“Direct shelling targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.

“The attacks on us are intentional,” says 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,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.

This absence of consequences has created a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”

Other Conflict Zones

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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.

In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked 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 averted with basic healthcare, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.

“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”