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, as the slaughter began. Several had recently given birth, while others were in the midst of labor.

Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me 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 ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan.

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. Women undergoing childbirth are exceptionally vulnerable due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations show an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.

“These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of women bearing children are confined.

Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, communications are sparse.

Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, posing a long-term threat to demographic stability.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations.

Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children continue to die from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits 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 contested deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.

“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,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are scarce guarantees and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health.

This void of justice has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, 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 rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.

In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have faced detention, death, or harm over the past two years of civil war.

The End of Safe Deliveries

Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war collapses medical infrastructure. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets 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.

“Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”