Thirty women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling hitting 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 aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“We are being singled out,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute 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 restricted due to 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 been arrested, killed, or injured 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 destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” 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.”
