A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful 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 executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind accusations of genocidal acts.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has created a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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 limited by a lack of access 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 faced detention, death, or harm 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 terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” notes 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”
