Thirty women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack 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 clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data 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 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not natural consequences of war. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“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.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states 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 more than 676 million women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, 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 Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to 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 are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
