🔗 Share this article

Thirty women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.

On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

While all major powers have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.

“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.

Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.

The Global Crisis in Maternal Health

These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.

Last year, it was reported that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.

The Situation in 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 succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach.

“We’ve had rockets 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 trying to alter birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure 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,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.

This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as 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 rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a inability to report 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 suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.

The End of Safe Deliveries

A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” observes 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”