A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
While all major powers have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future 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 are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at 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 seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 limited by a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
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
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, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”
