A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, 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, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Although world powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at 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. Journalism from conflict zones describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those attacking childbirth services.
This lack of accountability has fostered a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, 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
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”
