🔗 Share this article

Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.

Present at the hospital after dark, 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. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

Although world powers have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.

“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of women bearing children are confined.

Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes while assisting births.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.

Last year, it was reported that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth 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 societal repopulation and recovery.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.

“We’ve had rockets hitting 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 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. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters 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 faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris could impact 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 lack of accountability has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”

Other Conflict Zones

In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.

In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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

A large proportion of mother deaths are preventable with routine care, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals 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 can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”