🔗 Share this article

A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”

This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.

A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services

While all major powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data 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.

“This is not standard wartime hazards. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of women bearing children are confined.

Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.

Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to community survival.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.

“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.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters 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. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.

“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.

This lack of accountability has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”

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 limited by a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.

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 terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.

“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 break societal cohesion,” 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”