🔗 Share this article Childbirth Under Attack: How Women and Babies Became Casualties in Worldwide Wars. Dozens of women 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 in the midst of labor. Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.” This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions. Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services Although world powers have signed the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care. An investigation of records reveal an alarming level of violence: nearly 300 violent acts against places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards. “These incidents do not represent standard wartime hazards. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.” The majority of these assaults have occurred in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where countless of pregnant women are trapped. 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 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures. The Global Crisis in Maternal Health These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, reporting is limited. Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a devastating pattern. In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to community survival. The Situation in Gaza In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind accusations of genocidal acts. 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 giving birth in rubble because hospitals were out of reach. “Direct shelling fired at 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. Ukraine's Ordeal Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery. “The attacks on us are intentional,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians. “In fact, every facility is now a potential target,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris can strike a hospital.” Accountability Evaporates For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services. This void of justice has fostered a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.” Other Conflict Zones In El Fasher, the area was isolated from humanitarian aid long before the hospital attack, with malnutrition increasing drastically, especially among children and pregnant women. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, information is restricted due to a communication blackout 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 been arrested, killed, or injured over the past two years of civil war. The Collapse of Safe Childbirth Most maternal deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births lacking professional help. “When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” says a legal researcher. “Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”