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

Dozens of women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.

Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data reveal 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 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.

“These incidents do not represent natural consequences of war. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.

Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.

A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health

Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited.

Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat to societal repopulation and recovery.

The Situation in Gaza

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

Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals were out of reach.

“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting 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 aiming to influence birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.

“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says 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 faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health.

This lack of accountability has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.”

Other Conflict Zones

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 scarce because of a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.

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

Most maternal 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, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” observes a legal researcher.

“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”