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 actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have described it as “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 On Childbirth Services
Although world powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 violent acts against 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 form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Deaths have occurred, 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 slain, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind accusations of genocidal acts.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
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, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
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 limited by a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed 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 shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
