Thirty women had taken refuge 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.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone 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. Combatants forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records show 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 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 incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights 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 a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains 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 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.
This lack of accountability has created a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially 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 increasing drastically, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe 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 now become a standard defence.”
