A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. 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, became one of the few known survivors. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care
While all major powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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.
“This is not standard wartime hazards. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets fired at 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 childbirth centers have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities 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, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” says 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
