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Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a childbirth facility 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. Those who could run, fled.”

This brutal attack stands as among the worst examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen raided the hospital, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside.

Rights organizations have labeled it “a crime beyond words,” and a clear case of the vanishing safeguards for civilians trapped in war-torn areas in multiple global hotspots.

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Although world powers have agreed to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care.

Data analysis and investigations show an shocking trend: nearly 300 violent acts against maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 targeted attacks against hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not natural consequences of war. They form a pattern of reproductive violence.”

The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where hundreds of thousands of expectant mothers are stranded.

Women have been killed, denied medical attention, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births.

A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns

Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce.

Last year, analysis showed that half of all women who lost their lives in maternal circumstances resided in a war zone. This underscores a catastrophic reality.

In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future to societal repopulation and recovery.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the devastating effect on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for declaring certain actions a genocide.

Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women giving birth in rubble because hospitals could not be reached.

“We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates.

The Crisis in Ukraine

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 birth complications.

“We are being singled out,” says 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,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, 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 assaulting reproductive health.

This absence of consequences has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, 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 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 damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses.

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 End of Safe Deliveries

The majority of childbirth fatalities are averted with basic healthcare, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births devoid of emergency care.

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets indicates a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of violence against hospitals as a means of intimidation and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes 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.”