A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor.
On duty during that fateful night, 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. Survival meant running for your life.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
While all major powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on 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 expectant mothers are stranded.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 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 only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach.
“Direct shelling hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues.
“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.
“In fact, 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 even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.
This lack of accountability has created 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.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The End of Safe Deliveries
The majority of childbirth fatalities 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 without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates 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,” says 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
