Dozens of women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind declaring certain actions a genocide.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”
