Norwegian Refugee Council urges immediate lifting of the economic blockade imposed by US and EU on Syria

GENEVA, (ST)- The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has called on the United States and the European Union to immediately lift the economic blockade they have imposed on the peoples of Syria, Iran and Venezuela, stressing that this unfair siege impedes these countries’ efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Reuters quoted Jan Egeland, head of the NRC, as saying in a press conference in Geneva via internet that “what we are asking for is the lifting of economic sanctions on entire peoples and nations,” noting that the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union on Syria had stopped the NRC from acquiring software for online children’s education programs.

He added that procedures for humanitarian exemptions were too slow and bureaucratic.

 Egeland made it clear that sanctions imposed on Syria, Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere are making it difficult for the NRC and other relief organizations to work so as to serve ordinary people amid coronavirus crisis.

On April 15, the Syrian and Russian Coordination Committees affirmed in a joint statement that the US sanctions imposed on the Syrian people aim at “exterminating the entire people of a country”.

 They renewed their call on the international community to pressure Washington to lift these unjust sanctions in light of the spread of the Coronavirus worldwide.

The statement urged the international community to provide international support to the Syrian government and to pressure the United States and its European allies to lift the illegal and inhuman sanctions.

Hamda Mustafa