A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case 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 On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“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 denied deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect 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 taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
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 inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling 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 destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection 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.”
