🔗 Share this article

A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.

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 explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”

This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.

An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care

Although world powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk due to their reliance on 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 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of pregnant women are trapped.

Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.

The Global Crisis in Maternal Health

Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.

Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.

In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat to community survival.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.

Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.

“We’ve had rockets fired at 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 seeking to affect birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.

“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.

“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the hundreds of millions of women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.

This lack of accountability has led to a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”

Other Conflict Zones

In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.

In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed 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 preventable with routine care, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.

“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”