A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Several had recently given birth, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
While all major powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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.
“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
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 perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” 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 can be under attack now,” states 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 near active conflicts, there are scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute 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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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 avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
