A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were in the midst of labor.
Working that night, 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. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”
This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.
An investigation of records show an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 violent acts against places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not natural consequences of war. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.
Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger 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 a factor in genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.
“The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the hundreds of millions of women living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area lacked access to humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition increasing drastically, 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 damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked 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 terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births lacking professional help.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” notes 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”
