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 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they are limited to 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 were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 scarce because of a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, 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 End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” observes 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”
