🔗 Share this article The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. Thirty women had taken refuge in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor. Working that night, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, managed to survive the ordeal. “There were cries of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.” This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Militiamen forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 patients and their companions. Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots. A Record of Violence Against Maternal Care Although world powers have agreed to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has seen a record number of assaults against medical infrastructure. Women undergoing childbirth are particularly at risk due to their reliance on locally available medical care. An investigation of records reveal 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 represent a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.” The majority of these attacks have taken place in regions embroiled in intense conflict, where a vast number of women bearing children are confined. Deaths have occurred, 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 slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 detained—sometimes in the act of delivering babies. A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns Statistics are thought to be a substantial underreporting, as they are limited to incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, reporting is limited. Last year, it was reported that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a devastating pattern. Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to demographic stability. 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 genocide allegations. Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from inadequate care, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached. “We’ve had rockets fired at the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected deliberately targeting maternity care or seeking to affect birthrates. Ukraine's Ordeal Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Accounts from embattled medical centers describe births occurring in shelters and skyrocketing stress leading to maternal health issues. “Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed deliberately targeting civilians. “The truth of the matter is, every facility can be under attack now,” states a medical director in Sumy. “When defensive systems shoot down an aircraft, 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 scarce guarantees and even fewer war crimes prosecutions for those assaulting reproductive health. This lack of accountability has created a “atmosphere of lawlessness,” says a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.” Other Conflict Zones In El Fasher, the area was isolated from 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, causing fatalities among patients and staff. In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war. The Collapse of Safe Childbirth The majority of childbirth fatalities are avoidable with standard medicine, 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 lacking professional help. “The deliberate attack on maternity wards 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,” 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”