Thirty women had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, while others were in the midst of labor.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to societal repopulation and recovery.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.
Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” comments 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 few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Other Conflict Zones
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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 inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, 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 preventable with routine care, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.
“Hospitals are not completely safe 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 increasingly been used as a justification.”
