🔗 Share this article Childbirth Under Attack: How Women and Babies Became Casualties in Worldwide Wars. A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Several had recently given birth, while others were experiencing childbirth. Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.” This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions. Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots. An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care Although world powers have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable 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 maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards. “These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.” The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded. Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures. The Global Crisis in Maternal Health Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse. Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality. Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to community survival. Conditions within Gaza In Gaza, the catastrophic impact 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 medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached. “Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says 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 struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications. “Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians. “The truth of the matter is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.” Accountability Evaporates For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services. This void of justice has created a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially 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 spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is scarce because of a communication blackout 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 suffered violence over the past two years of civil war. The Collapse of Safe Childbirth A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births lacking professional help. “If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher. “Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”