🔗 Share this article The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. Thirty women had taken refuge in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, as the slaughter began. Among them were new mothers, while others were actively in labor. On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “There were cries of women and children,” he recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. We who were able to escape, did so.” This brutal attack stands as one of the most shocking examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 innocent people inside. Rights organizations have called it “an unspeakable atrocity,” and a prime example of the vanishing safeguards for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care While all major powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care. Research and compiled data uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering 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 inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.” The majority of these attacks have taken place in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped. Mothers have lost their lives, blocked from reaching help, or made to have their babies in dangerous and unsanitary conditions. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been killed, 15 abducted, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies. A Worldwide Emergency in Maternal Health The numbers are probably a significant underestimate, as they are limited to incidents reported in news outlets. In many war-torn areas, reporting is limited. Last year, findings indicated that 50% of women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend. Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to community survival. The Situation in Gaza In Gaza, the catastrophic impact on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as part of the basis for genocide allegations. Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women having children by the roadside because hospitals were inaccessible. “Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 childbirth centers have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications. “The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians. “The reality is, every facility faces the threat of assault,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.” Accountability Evaporates For the hundreds of millions of women living within range of fighting, there are scarce guarantees and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care. This absence of consequences has led to a “culture of impunity,” explains a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by preventing births.” Other Conflict Zones In El Fasher, the area was isolated 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 limited by a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, 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 End of Safe Deliveries Most maternal deaths are avoidable with standard medicine, but war shatters health systems. Rights groups note that anxiety is forcing women away from facilities once considered safe, leading them to risky home births without skilled assistance. “When childbirth centers become intentional targets points toward a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” notes 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.”