🔗 Share this article The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. Thirty women were huddled for safety 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, managed to survive the ordeal. “I heard the screams of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.” This appalling incident stands as a particularly egregious examples in the protracted internal conflict tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers forced their way into the building, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families. Rights organizations have called it “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians living amidst warfare in multiple global hotspots. An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care Despite every significant nation are signatories to the international laws of war, which require them to safeguard civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of attacks on healthcare systems. Expectant mothers are highly exposed due to their need for locally available medical care. Research and compiled data uncover 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 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards. “These are not standard wartime hazards. They constitute a pattern of reproductive violence.” The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of pregnant women are trapped. Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or made to have their babies in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 maternal health workers have been slain, 15 abducted, and 101 arrested—sometimes while assisting births. The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they only include incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, communications are sparse. Last year, it was reported that 50% of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a devastating pattern. In addition to the loss of life, 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 one reason behind genocide allegations. Following truces, doctors report that women and children succumb from medical shortages, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women having children by the roadside because hospitals could not be reached. “We’ve had rockets targeting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” explains the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has rejected 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 damaged or destroyed in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to problems during delivery. “Russia is targeting us deliberately,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. The government has disputed 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 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 lack of accountability has created a “culture of impunity,” 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 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 limited by a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, causing fatalities among patients and staff. In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire and dozens of midwives and patients have suffered violence over the past two years of civil war. The End of Safe Deliveries Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, 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 speaks to a larger and alarming strategy: the use of violence against hospitals as a weapon to spread fear and to break societal cohesion,” says 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 ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”