Thirty women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone 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 stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not natural consequences of war. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, posing a long-term threat to community survival.
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 medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were out of reach.
“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the more than 676 million women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This absence of consequences has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 hit a neonatal ward, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed 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
The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes 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 often been cited as an excuse.”
