🔗 Share this article The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. Thirty women were seeking shelter in a childbirth facility in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Among them were new mothers, while others were experiencing childbirth. Present at the hospital after dark, a 28-year-old lab technician, a technician named Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, lived to tell the tale. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he recounts. “They executed everybody inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.” This horrifying event stands as a particularly egregious examples in the two-year civil war tearing the African nation apart. Combatants forced their way into the building, leaving dead more than 460 innocent people inside. Rights organizations have described it as “a crime beyond words,” and a prime example of the collapse in safety for civilians living amidst warfare in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan. An Unprecedented Assault On Childbirth Services Despite every significant nation have agreed to the international laws of war, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has seen a record number of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are particularly at risk due to their need for locally available medical care. An investigation of records uncover an unprecedented scale of attacks: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 direct strikes on hospitals and delivery wards. “This is not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a deliberate strategy of violence against reproduction.” The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped. Mothers have lost their lives, denied medical attention, 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 slain, 15 kidnapped, and 101 taken into custody—sometimes during medical procedures. A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns These figures likely represent a grave undercount, as they are limited to incidents documented publicly. In many war-torn areas, information is scarce. Last year, it was reported that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth were in a conflict area. This underscores a horrifying trend. In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying maternal and neonatal care facilities, creating a grave danger to community survival. The Situation in Gaza In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care has been cited by a UN commission as a factor in genocide allegations. Following truces, doctors report that women and children are still perishing from a lack of proper treatment, owing to critical shortages of medicine and equipment. UN officials have relayed women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were out of reach. “Direct shelling hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” says the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has contested deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates. The Crisis in Ukraine Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals describe births forced underground and extreme psychological pressure leading to birth complications. “The attacks on us are intentional,” says the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians. “The reality is, every facility can be under attack now,” comments a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, 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 few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care. This lack of accountability has created a “culture of impunity,” says a human rights lawyer. “Attacks on reproductive healthcare, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, are potentially acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.” Additional Hotspots In El Fasher, the area had been cut off 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 restricted due to a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma struck a baby care unit, 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 Collapse of Safe Childbirth Most maternal deaths are preventable with routine care, but war destroys healthcare networks. Rights groups note that terror is compelling women away from facilities once considered safe, resulting in risky home births devoid of emergency care. “If maternity hospitals are being deliberately targeted indicates a broader and more sinister pattern: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a tool for terror and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher. “There is no absolute protection for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities are not inviolable if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has increasingly been used as a justification.”