A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
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. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Although world powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
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 damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
