A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover 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 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not natural consequences of war. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within 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 declaring certain actions a genocide.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence 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 forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition rising sharply, 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, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to destroy community bonds,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
