Thirty women had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.
On duty during that fateful night, 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 recounts. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Data analysis and investigations show an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on 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 Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in accusations of genocidal acts.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected 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 forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.
“We are being singled out,” 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 can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has led to a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially 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 spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is limited by a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.
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 destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to destroy community bonds,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”
