A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not natural consequences of war. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“Direct shelling targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has led to a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 scarce because of a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births lacking professional help.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
