Damage From US Sanctions Already Done Before Earthquake, Syrian Writers Say
/ Go to the mediabankConstruction equipment is used to clear debris as the search for survivors continues, in the aftermath of the earthquake, in Aleppo, Syria.
/ Go to the mediabankInternationalIndiaAfricaJames TweedieWhile the US has offered limited exceptions to its sanctions on Syria — for resisting CIA-armed sectarian foreign terrorist groups — the Russian military has sent servicemen and aid to help in the relief efforts in both Syria and Turkiye.Leading Syrian voices in the West have condemned US-led sanctions on their country for adding to the suffering in the wake of Monday’s devastating earthquake.The death toll had reached more than 18,000 in Turkiye and over 1,300 in Syria by Friday, with tens of thousands injured and victims still trapped under collapsed buildings.The US Treasury Department announced on Thursday that it was allowing limited sanctions relief for six months only, to allow Syria to import urgently-needed supplies and receive aid.Syrian commentators pointed out that years of Western embargoes imposed on Damascus — for daring to fight back against US-armed sectarian terrorist groups attempting to overthrow its elected secular government — had crippled the country’s emergency response infrastructure.By contrast, Russian servicemen from the small expeditionary force that helped the Syrian Arab Army defeat al-Qaeda* and Daesh* immediately joined the rescue efforts in Latakia province where they are stationed. Moscow also sent planeloads of aid and personnel to help in Turkiye.Syrian-American journalist and political commentator Steven Sahiounie told Sputnik that the chronic shortages of fuel and food caused by the sanctions were exacerbating the natural disaster.”The health system and the infrastructure is not helping because we’re coming out of the 12-year war,” Sahiounie said. “We have sanctions on us. Syria has no electricity. Syria has no fuel, no water, not that much food. And that’s the problem.”If the West wants to help ordinary Syrians it should lift all sanctions “immediately” and end the US occupation of oil fields in the country’s east.”The Syrian people are saying lift the sanctions off of Syria. That is the number one. You see it on Facebook, you walk in the street and ask people that is the number one they want, lift the sanctions off of Syria,” Sahiounie said.The West should help Syria, “especially the Europeans and the Americans, because they are the number one who has a role in the destruction of Syria and the suffering of the Syrian people because they supported this war.””They’re the ones who caused it and they supported the radical Islamic terrorists,” he pointed out. “The Americans who are in the east of Syria occupying the Syrian oil wells.”But the journalist stressed that the issue is “not political,” as people on all sides have been affected by the disaster.”It hit everyone. It hit Latakia, it hit Idlib and it hit Aleppo. It hit the pro-government and the other side who are against the government. It hit every Syrian,” Sahiounie said.
WorldSanctions on Syria Affect Aid Deliveries Amid Earthquake Response, IFRC SaysYesterday, 05:44 GMTMaram Susli, an Australian-based journalist and contributor to Lebanese satellite news channel Al-Mayadeen, told Sputnik the US sanctions were a “punishment against the Syrian people.””Even before the earthquake, let me paint you a picture of what the sanctions have been doing. The Syrian economy has basically been destroyed,” Susli said. “They’re not able to bring in any essential goods, even medicines from overseas because of the sanctions, particularly some oncology drugs to fight cancer, leukaemia.”Ongoing US theft of Syria’s oil resources has created an energy crisis, now most acute as the disaster fell during the freezing winter months. “Electricity? We have like one hour per day in Damascus,” Susli said. “It gets very, very cold in Syria, below zero, it snows.””There’s not enough petrol,” she added. “You know, it’s the Middle East and Syria has oil. But the US military is actually occupying all the oil fields, so they can’t even access their own oil.”Susli, who also writes the ‘Syrian Girl’ blog, was particularly scathing of US State Department spokesman Ned Price. Price told reporters on Monday that it would be “ironic, if not even counterproductive for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its own people over the course of a dozen years now.””The guy’s a psychopath,” Susli said. “I mean, there’s literally children under the rubble right now that we can’t get them out. And he’s saying ‘it would be counterproductive’ to not even just give aid to Syria, but to allow other people to give aid.”She pointed to a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign for emergency relief for Syria that was blocked.”They’re murderers. And every single life that is lost because of these sanctions, and every single person that is now suffocating under the rubble — the blood is on his hands.”
WorldSyrian Ambassador to Russia: ‘Earthquake Catastrophe Shows True Colors of the West’Yesterday, 17:02 GMT*terrorist groups banned in Russia and by UN Security Council resolution.
