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While in Damascus recently, I spoke with Pierre Le Corf, a French humanitarian I've known since 2016, who has been living in Syria for the past six years, and has seen and deeply experienced all aspects of the war on Syria, living mainly in Aleppo.
Given that Pierre lives among Syria's poorest families and devotes his time to helping poor communities in a myriad of ways, he is well-equipped to talk in detail about how Western sanctions against Syria are hurting the people.
Excerpts:
“You might not see people starving in the street, but that's not what suffering is. People are suffering in silence. More and more, the youth are leaving the country, not because they want to leave Syria or feel oppressed, but because they feel that they have no hope anymore. The currency went from 50 Syrian pounts (before the war) to 4,000 Syrian pounds. People work from morning to night, and at the end of the day, their kids might ask for a banana. One kilogram of bananas is 5,000 Syrian pounds. When you earn 60,000 a month...”
He spoke of the pressure the US puts on every company and person who deals with Syria, that they can be imprisoned, fined. “They are forcing companies to not work with Syria,” to isolate Syria.
“If you ask any Syrian in the street what the sanctions are for, they will tell you, 'It's hurting us and no one else.' I know families for who I'm trying to figure out how to bring them medicines that they can't find any more. A week ago, I went to bury a guy who we had been bringing medicine, because we couldn't find it any more. It became 90,000 pounds a box, he needed four boxes a month. He needed more medicine and better treatment, that we can't have, because its forbidden. Fobidden why? Because they pretend it's 'double use', maybe it could be used for the army. The people are paying the price, no one else.
The sanctions are not just starving people and killing hope, they're also killing people.”
https://youtu.be/cCWOtmkTBj8
Given that Pierre lives among Syria's poorest families and devotes his time to helping poor communities in a myriad of ways, he is well-equipped to talk in detail about how Western sanctions against Syria are hurting the people.
Excerpts:
“You might not see people starving in the street, but that's not what suffering is. People are suffering in silence. More and more, the youth are leaving the country, not because they want to leave Syria or feel oppressed, but because they feel that they have no hope anymore. The currency went from 50 Syrian pounts (before the war) to 4,000 Syrian pounds. People work from morning to night, and at the end of the day, their kids might ask for a banana. One kilogram of bananas is 5,000 Syrian pounds. When you earn 60,000 a month...”
He spoke of the pressure the US puts on every company and person who deals with Syria, that they can be imprisoned, fined. “They are forcing companies to not work with Syria,” to isolate Syria.
“If you ask any Syrian in the street what the sanctions are for, they will tell you, 'It's hurting us and no one else.' I know families for who I'm trying to figure out how to bring them medicines that they can't find any more. A week ago, I went to bury a guy who we had been bringing medicine, because we couldn't find it any more. It became 90,000 pounds a box, he needed four boxes a month. He needed more medicine and better treatment, that we can't have, because its forbidden. Fobidden why? Because they pretend it's 'double use', maybe it could be used for the army. The people are paying the price, no one else.
The sanctions are not just starving people and killing hope, they're also killing people.”
https://youtu.be/cCWOtmkTBj8
