🔗 Share this article

Dozens of women had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.

Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.

An investigation of records uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.

“This is not standard wartime hazards. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.

Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.

The Global Crisis in Maternal Health

These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.

Last year, it was reported that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a devastating pattern.

In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to community survival.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.

Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.

“Direct shelling hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.

“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.

“In fact, 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.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability 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, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”

Additional Hotspots

In El Fasher, the area lacked access to humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition spiking dangerously, 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 damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.

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 Collapse of Safe Childbirth

A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror 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 may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”