Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records 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 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area was isolated from 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 scarce because of 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 faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities are preventable with routine care, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection 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.”
