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, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were in the midst of labor.

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 recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”

This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families.

Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

An investigation of records uncover an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not standard wartime hazards. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”

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

Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.

The Global Crisis in Maternal Health

Statistics are thought to be a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.

Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are wrecking critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to societal repopulation and recovery.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.

“Direct shelling 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 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.

“We are being singled out,” claims 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 can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and a stark lack of legal accountability for those attacking childbirth services.

This lack of accountability has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, 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 spiking dangerously, especially among children and pregnant women.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, causing fatalities among patients and staff.

In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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 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.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” says 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 often been cited as an excuse.”