The Targeting of Childbirth: 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. Several had recently given birth, while others were experiencing childbirth.
Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.”
This appalling incident stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.
Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a stark illustration of the vanishing safeguards for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.
An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services
Although world powers have signed the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.
An investigation of records uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards.
“These are not standard wartime hazards. 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.
Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes while assisting births.
The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns
These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.
Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.
In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, jeopardizing the future to community survival.
The Situation in Gaza
In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in 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. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.
“Direct shelling fired at 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 aiming to influence birthrates.
The Crisis in Ukraine
Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births forced underground and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues.
“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” asserts 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,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, 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 scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.
This lack of accountability has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”
Additional Hotspots
In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 restricted due to a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, resulting in tragic loss of life.
In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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 destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.
“The deliberate attack on maternity wards points toward a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of violence against hospitals as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” 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 now become a standard defence.”