Thirty women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
While all major powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
An investigation of records uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 violent acts against 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 inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights 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 continue to die from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute 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 rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a inability to report 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
A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births lacking professional help.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” observes 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”
