A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” 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 Against Maternal Care
Although world powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks 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 hitting 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 childbirth centers have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals 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,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has fostered a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, 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
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” says 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”
