🔗 Share this article Childbirth Under Attack: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. Thirty women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were actively in labor. Working that night, 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 explains. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.” This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families. Rights organizations have labeled it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in several nations at war. An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care Despite every significant nation have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care. Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: 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. “These are not natural consequences of war. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.” The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of expectant mothers are stranded. Women have been killed, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures. The Global Crisis in Maternal Health These figures likely represent a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce. Last year, analysis showed that one in two mothers who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend. In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to community survival. The Situation in Gaza In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care 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 critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach. “Direct shelling targeting 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. The Crisis in Ukraine Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to maternal health issues. “We are being singled out,” says 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 can strike a hospital.” A Culture of Impunity For the hundreds of millions of women living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services. This void of justice has fostered a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.” Other Conflict Zones 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff. In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence 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 shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care. “If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher. “Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”