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

Thirty women were seeking shelter 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, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he states. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”

This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Although world powers are signatories to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations show an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 violent acts against places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded.

Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in perilous and unsafe environments. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 taken hostage, 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 are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.

Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth were in a conflict area. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to demographic stability.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences 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 are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed 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 rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters 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. 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 could impact a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.

This absence of consequences has led to a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.”

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 scarce because of a inability to report 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 End of Safe Deliveries

A large proportion of mother deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, 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 without skilled assistance.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” says a legal researcher.

“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities can lose their protected status if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”