Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Although world powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records show an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering 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 form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of women bearing children are confined.
Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.
Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to community survival.
Conditions within 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 declaring certain actions a genocide.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 aiming to influence 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 problems during delivery.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This absence of consequences has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births without skilled assistance.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to tear apart the social fabric,” says 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 ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
