The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts.

Thirty women were seeking shelter in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor.

Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries 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 one of the most shocking examples in the ongoing war tearing the North African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have described it as “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in several nations at war.

An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services

Despite every significant nation are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering 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 inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”

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

Deaths have occurred, prevented from accessing care, 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 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

The numbers are probably a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, reporting is limited.

Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.

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 catastrophic impact on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for accusations of genocidal acts.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached.

“We’ve had rockets fired at 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.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery.

“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says 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 over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care.

This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”

Other Conflict Zones

In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, 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

The majority of childbirth fatalities 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 devoid of emergency care.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to tear apart the social fabric,” says 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 ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has now become a standard defence.”