🔗 Share this article Childbirth Under Attack: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. A group of thirty mothers had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth. 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 explains. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.” This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside. Rights organizations have described it as “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a stark illustration of the deteriorating protection for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots. An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care While all major powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their need for locally available medical care. Research and compiled data show 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 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards. “These incidents do not represent inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a pattern of reproductive violence.” The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded. Women have been killed, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been killed, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures. A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they only include incidents documented publicly. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse. Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a catastrophic reality. Apart from fatalities, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery. The Situation in Gaza In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind genocide allegations. Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached. “Direct shelling targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates. Ukraine's Ordeal Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications. “Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians. “The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris could impact a hospital.” A Culture of Impunity For the over half a billion females living near active conflicts, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services. This absence of consequences has created a “environment where anything goes,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, can be understood as acts of genocide by preventing births.” Additional Hotspots In El Fasher, the area had been cut off from 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 scarce because of a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, causing fatalities among patients and staff. 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 Most maternal 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, leading them to risky home births lacking professional help. “The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” observes 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 now become a standard defence.”