A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.
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 explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”
This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.
Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war.
A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services
While all major powers have signed the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their reliance 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 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.
“This is not natural consequences of war. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”
The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of women bearing children are confined.
Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.
A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend.
Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking hospitals and wards, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind accusations of genocidal acts.
Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible.
“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting 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.
Ukraine's Ordeal
Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“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 reality is, every facility is now a potential target,” comments 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 near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.
This absence of consequences has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area was isolated from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition rising sharply, 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, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.
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
A large proportion of mother 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.
“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has now become a standard defence.”
