Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, 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. “There were cries of women and children,” he explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have described it as “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their reliance 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 constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, 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 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, it was reported that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals were out of reach.
“Direct shelling hitting 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.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed 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. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, 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 void of justice has led to a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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 limited by a communication blackout 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 suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, 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 speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
