Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, while others were experiencing childbirth.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “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, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data show 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, 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 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“We’ve had rockets 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 aiming to influence birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This lack of accountability has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
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 lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
