Childbirth Under Attack: How Women and Babies Became Casualties in Worldwide Wars.

A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.

On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”

This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.

Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.

An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data show an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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 are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent 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, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.

Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to community survival.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in declaring certain actions a genocide.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.

“Our facility has endured missile strikes targeting 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 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.

“The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians.

“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.

This lack of accountability has led to a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”

Additional Hotspots

In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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, causing fatalities among patients and staff.

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 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 lacking professional help.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes a legal researcher.

“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”