A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
Working that 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 states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
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, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Although world powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 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. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, 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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.
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 End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to destroy community bonds,” observes a legal researcher.
“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”
