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Dozens of women had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. 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, 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. Those who could run, fled.”

This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in several nations at war.

A Record of Violence On Childbirth Services

Despite every significant nation have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not natural consequences of war. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.

Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, 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 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.

A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns

The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.

Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to community survival.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the devastating effect on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.

“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications.

“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.

“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris can strike a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those assaulting reproductive health.

This void of justice has created a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute 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 rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.

In Myanmar, medical facilities have been bombed and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war.

The End of Safe Deliveries

Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, 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 devoid of emergency care.

“The deliberate attack on maternity wards speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to destroy community bonds,” says 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 ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”