Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor.
Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their need for 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.
“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress 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.
“The truth of the matter is, 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.”
A Culture of Impunity
For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.
This lack of accountability has led to a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute 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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm 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 anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection 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.”
