The Targeting of Childbirth: The Making of Women and Babies into Casualties in Worldwide Wars.

A group of thirty mothers were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were in the midst of labor.

On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”

This horrifying event stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have described it as “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the collapse in safety for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations show an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to 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 inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these incidents have happened in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined.

Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, or compelled to deliver in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.

A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health

Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.

Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying 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 part of the basis for genocide allegations.

Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.

“Direct shelling hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and extreme psychological pressure 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.

“In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the more than 676 million women living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.

This void of justice has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially 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 restricted due to a communication blackout 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 faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.

The Collapse of Safe Childbirth

A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births lacking professional help.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.

“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”