GENEVA, 12 Sep The West should regularly study the consequences of unilateral sanctions for the Syrian population, humanitarian issues should not be politicized, says the report of the UN Syrian Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in Syria at the 54th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
“The decision in February by the United States and the European Union, in particular, to provide temporary exceptions (from sanctions — ed.) for all transactions related to assistance to the Syrian Arab Republic was timely. However, the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the population countrywide, including over-compliance with regulatory requirements, should be regularly reviewed,” the document says.
The Commission clarifies that it has repeatedly called for aid delivery to be based on a “transparent and impartial humanitarian assessment”, for humanitarian access approvals to be “not politicized” and for all obstacles to the delivery of aid to be removed, including those caused by unilateral coercive measures.
At the end of February, the European Union and the United States eliminated the need for humanitarian organizations to seek prior authorization from relevant authorities in EU member states to make transfers or provide humanitarian goods and services to individuals and organizations on sanctions lists. These exceptions were extended until March 11, 2024.
Earthquakes of magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 occurred one after another on February 6 in southeastern Turkey, they also affected Syria. According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the tremors were the strongest since 1939, he called them “the disaster of the century.” The tremors, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, were felt in 10 provinces of the country and neighboring states, including Syria, where the death toll, according to official data, exceeded 1.4 thousand, and almost 2.5 thousand were injured. At the same time, according to the latest WHO information, about 8.5 thousand people died in this country.