Dozens of women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data show an alarming level of violence: 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 assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, reporting is limited.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as 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 rising sharply, 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 faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
A large proportion of mother 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.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
