Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They represent 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.
Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“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 denied deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” 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,” notes 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 close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, 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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm 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 anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
