Thirty women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were in the midst of labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations reveal an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
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 restricted due to a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” observes 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 ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
