Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots.
A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care
While all major powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
Research and compiled data uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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 constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.
Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.
The Global Crisis in Maternal Health
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to demographic stability.
Conditions within Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“We’ve had rockets fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says 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 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.
“We are being singled out,” says 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,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
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 fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, causing fatalities among patients and staff.
In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” observes a legal researcher.
“There is no absolute protection 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 often been cited as an excuse.”
