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Dozens of women were huddled for safety in a maternity hospital in El Fasher, Sudan, at the onset of the horrific violence. Some had just delivered their newborns, while others were experiencing childbirth.

On duty during that fateful night, a 28-year-old lab technician, Abdo-Rabo Ahmed, became one of the few known survivors. “The sounds of screaming reached me of women and children,” he explains. “They were killing everyone inside the hospital. Survival meant running for your life.”

This brutal attack stands as a particularly egregious examples in the ongoing war tearing the African nation apart. Armed soldiers stormed the facility, leaving dead more than 460 patients and their companions.

Rights organizations have labeled it “an act of unspeakable brutality,” and a prime example of the deteriorating protection for civilians caught in conflict zones in multiple global hotspots.

An Unprecedented Assault Against Maternal Care

While all major powers are signatories to the Geneva conventions, which commit them to defending civilians, the past year has witnessed an unprecedented spike of assaults against medical infrastructure. Expectant mothers are particularly at risk due to their dependence on locally available medical care.

An investigation of records uncover an shocking trend: nearly 300 incidents targeting or hindering maternity care facilities, staff, and pregnant women over the last three years, including at least 119 bombardments of hospitals and delivery wards.

“These are not standard wartime hazards. They represent a systematic assault on childbirth.”

The majority of these assaults have occurred in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, where countless of women bearing children are confined.

Mothers have lost their lives, prevented from accessing care, or forced to give birth in deplorable situations. The data also indicates that at least 68 midwives, obstetricians, and gynaecologists have been slain, 15 taken hostage, and 101 detained—sometimes during medical procedures.

A Worldwide Emergency for Mothers and Newborns

These figures likely represent a substantial underreporting, as they capture solely incidents covered by the media. In many conflict zones, information is scarce.

Last year, findings indicated that one in two mothers who perished while pregnant or giving birth resided in a war zone. This underscores a devastating pattern.

Beyond killing women and staff, these attacks are obliterating maternal and neonatal care facilities, jeopardizing the future 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 one reason behind genocide allegations.

Even after ceasefires, doctors report that women and children succumb from a lack of proper treatment, owing to desperate lacks of medicine and equipment. Agencies have reported women delivering babies amidst ruins because hospitals were inaccessible.

“Our facility has endured missile strikes hitting the wards, operating rooms, and maternity wards,” states the head of a major hospital’s gynecology department. A military spokesperson has denied deliberately targeting maternity care or aiming to influence birthrates.

Ukraine's Ordeal

Since early 2022, at least 80 maternity and neonatal facilities have been struck and ruined in Ukraine. Reports from frontline hospitals 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. Russian authorities have denied deliberately targeting civilians.

“In fact, every facility faces the threat of assault,” states a medical director in Sumy. “Even if air defence intercepts a drone, the falling debris may hit a hospital.”

Accountability Evaporates

For the over half a billion females living close to deadly warfare, there are few safeguards and rare trials for atrocities for those attacking childbirth services.

This void of justice has created a “environment where anything goes,” argues a human rights lawyer. “Assaults against maternal services, like forced pregnancy or forced sterilisation, may constitute acts of genocide by destroying a group's future.”

Additional Hotspots

In El Fasher, the area lacked access to 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 restricted due to a inability to report from rebel-held areas. Nevertheless, shelling in Goma hit a neonatal ward, resulting in tragic loss of life.

In Myanmar, hospitals have come under fire 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

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

“When childbirth centers become intentional targets speaks to a wider and more disturbing trend: the use of attacks on medical facilities as a means of intimidation and to destroy community bonds,” notes a legal researcher.

“Hospitals are not completely safe for hospitals in war. Under the Geneva conventions, medical facilities may forfeit their immunity if used for acts deemed ‘prejudicial to the opposing side’, which has often been cited as an excuse.”