Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “A massacre was taking place 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 North 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 caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
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 violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within 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.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“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.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, 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 rising sharply, 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, 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
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
