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

Dozens of women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor.

Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”

This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have called 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.

A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services

Despite every significant nation have signed the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike 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 places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of women bearing children are confined.

Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.

A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health

The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents documented publicly. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce.

Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.

Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.

“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains 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 struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.

“We are being singled out,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.

“The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the hundreds of millions of women living near active conflicts, there are minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability for those targeting maternity care.

This lack of accountability has led to a “environment where anything goes,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.”

Additional Hotspots

In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.

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

Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, 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.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes a legal researcher.

“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”