🔗 Share this article The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Casualties in Worldwide Wars. A group of thirty mothers were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth. Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.” This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside. Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services 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. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care. Data analysis and investigations uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 violent acts against 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 form a systematic assault on childbirth.” The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where a vast number of expectant mothers are stranded. Deaths have occurred, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been murdered, 15 abducted, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures. A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns These figures likely represent a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse. Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality. Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating hospitals and wards, creating a grave danger to community survival. Conditions within Gaza In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts. Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals were out of reach. “Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or trying to alter birthrates. Ukraine's Ordeal Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications. “Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians. “The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.” A Culture of Impunity For the more than 676 million women living close to deadly warfare, there are minimal protections and a stark lack of legal accountability for those assaulting reproductive health. This lack of accountability has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, are potentially acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.” Other Conflict Zones In El Fasher, the area was isolated from 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 communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, killing mothers, babies, and nurses. 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 avoidable with standard medicine, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births devoid of emergency care. “If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” says a legal researcher. “Hospitals are not completely safe 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.”