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Thirty women 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 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. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he states. “A massacre was taking place inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.”

This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case of the collapse in safety for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

While all major powers have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of violence targeting health services. Expectant mothers are exceptionally vulnerable due to their reliance on locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data show an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.

“This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped.

Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, or forced to give birth in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been killed, 15 taken hostage, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures.

A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns

Statistics are thought to be a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.

Last year, analysis showed that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern.

Apart from fatalities, these attacks are wrecking maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.

Conditions within Gaza

In Gaza, the catastrophic impact 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 succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach.

“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 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. Journalism from conflict zones describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to problems during delivery.

“Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.

“In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the hundreds of millions of women living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.

This void of justice has led to a “culture of impunity,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, may constitute acts of genocide by preventing births.”

Additional Hotspots

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 scarce because of a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff.

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

A large proportion of mother deaths are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance.

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes a legal researcher.

“Safeguards are not guaranteed 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.”