A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Although world powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for 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.
“These are not natural consequences of war. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.”
The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.
Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.
Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.
Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached.
“We’ve had rockets fired at 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 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 forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.
“The attacks on us are intentional,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.
“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”
Accountability Evaporates
For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those targeting maternity care.
This void of justice has created a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”
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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.
The Collapse of Safe Childbirth
The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear 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.”
