A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare 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 experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover 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 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, 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 devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” says 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
