Childbirth Under Attack: How Women and Babies Became Casualties in Worldwide Wars.

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 experiencing childbirth.

On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named 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 two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, reportedly killing more than 460 innocent people inside.

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

A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care

Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which obligate them to protect civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of violence targeting health services. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

Research and compiled data show an unprecedented scale of attacks: 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 represent a pattern of reproductive violence.”

The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped.

Deaths have occurred, blocked from reaching help, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes in the act of delivering babies.

The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns

The numbers are probably a grave undercount, as they only include incidents reported in news outlets. In many areas of fighting, communications are sparse.

Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a horrifying trend.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, posing a long-term threat to societal repopulation and recovery.

The Situation in Gaza

In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on reproductive health rights has been cited by a UN commission as one reason behind declaring certain actions a genocide.

Despite periods of calm, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women giving birth in rubble because hospitals were inaccessible.

“Direct shelling fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 childbirth centers have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements 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. Officials from Russia have rejected deliberately targeting civilians.

“The truth of the matter is, every facility is now a potential target,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

A Culture of Impunity

For the over half a billion females living within range of fighting, there are few safeguards and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those attacking childbirth services.

This absence of consequences has fostered a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says 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 had been cut off 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 scarce because of a lack of access from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.

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

Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that fear is now driving women away from facilities once considered safe, pushing them toward risky home births without skilled assistance.

“If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a weapon to spread fear and to tear apart the social fabric,” observes a legal researcher.

“There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘harmful to the enemy’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”