🔗 Share this article The Targeting of Childbirth: How Women and Babies Became Targets in Global Conflicts. Thirty women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, when the massacre started. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were actively in labor. Present at the hospital after dark, 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 recounts. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Those who could run, fled.” This horrifying event stands as among the worst examples in the two-year civil war tearing the North African nation apart. Combatants stormed the facility, allegedly slaughtering more than 460 individuals receiving care and their families. Rights organizations have called it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a clear case 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 Although world powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has experienced a historic high of attacks on healthcare systems. Mothers in labor are highly exposed due to their reliance on locally available medical care. An investigation of records uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 attacks on and disruptions to places and people associated with childbirth over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards. “These are not inevitable outcomes of conflict. They form a systematic assault on childbirth.” The majority of these incidents have happened in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of pregnant women are trapped. Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or compelled to deliver in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 childbirth professionals and specialists have been murdered, 15 kidnapped, and 101 arrested—sometimes during medical procedures. The Global Crisis for Mothers and Newborns These figures likely represent a significant underestimate, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many areas of fighting, information is scarce. Last year, findings indicated that half of all women who perished while pregnant or giving birth lived amidst hostilities. This underscores a devastating pattern. In addition to the loss of life, these attacks are destroying critical infrastructure for mothers and babies, creating a grave danger to community survival. Conditions within Gaza In Gaza, the ruinous consequences on the right to maternal care 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 succumb from inadequate care, owing to severe deficits of medicine and equipment. Accounts describe women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals could not be reached. “Our facility has endured missile strikes 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 trying to alter birthrates. Ukraine's Ordeal Since early 2022, at least 80 hospitals for mothers and babies have been attacked and rendered unusable in Ukraine. Journalism from conflict zones describe births taking place in basements and skyrocketing stress leading to birth complications. “Russia is targeting us deliberately,” claims the head of obstetrics at a repeatedly damaged hospital in Kherson. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians. “In fact, every facility can be under attack now,” notes a medical director in Sumy. “If a drone is destroyed, the falling debris could impact a hospital.” Accountability Evaporates For the more than 676 million women living within range of fighting, there are minimal protections and rare trials for atrocities for those targeting maternity care. This lack of accountability has created a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Violence targeting childbirth, like coerced birth or involuntary sterilization, can be understood as acts of genocide by hindering reproduction.” Other Conflict Zones 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 limited by a communication blackout from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma damaged a maternity hospital, killing mothers, babies, and nurses. In Myanmar, clinics have been attacked 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 A large proportion of mother deaths are averted with basic healthcare, but war destroys healthcare networks. 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 larger and alarming strategy: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to break societal cohesion,” notes a legal researcher. “Safeguards are not guaranteed for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘militarily advantageous’, which has now become a standard defence.”