Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection 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 seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an shocking trend: 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 natural consequences of war. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat 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 a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble 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 contested deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, 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 few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” says 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 was isolated from 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 limited by a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
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 avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
