Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war 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 “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
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 genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“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 rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
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 Collapse of Safe Childbirth
The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”
