🔗 Share this article

Dozens of women had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were in the midst of labor.

Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.

Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.

An investigation of records uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to 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 inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.

Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.

Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.

Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.

“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.

“We are being singled out,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied 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 may hit a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.

This absence of consequences has created a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”

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 struck a baby care unit, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.

In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.

The Collapse of Safe Childbirth

A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” 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.”