Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. 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. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen 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 prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones 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 violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not standard wartime hazards. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.
Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.
Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“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 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. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“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 truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition increasing drastically, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked 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
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”
