Merry Christmas: No Tears for Syria
• Damascus is bitterly cold, and 12M Syrians are facing a deadly winter without heating fuel, gasoline for transportation, and dark evenings without electricity.
• Ambulances respond only to the most life-threatening emergencies because they must save gasoline.
• On the black-market, gasoline costs $50 for twenty litres.
• Criminal sanctions against the country are imposed by the US and their satellites (EU, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the Arab League) since 2011.
• The sanctions have pushed most Syrians below the poverty line, with shortages of food, water, electricity, shelter, cooking and heating fuel, transportation, and healthcare.
• Fuel is needed to generate electricity so most homes in Syria have about one hour of electricity at several intervals each day, with the amount decreasing daily.
• The US army occupies Syria’s oil fields, steals oil and wheat, and doesn’t allow imported oil to arrive. Energy World reported in October that the US stole 92 tankers and trucks of oil and wheat from north-eastern Syria and brought them to US bases in Iraq.
• The sanctions prevent payments from being received from banks, and deliveries from foreign manufacturers and cause serious shortages in medicine and medical equipment.
• The lack of a water treatment system in Aleppo caused a Cholera outbreak in summer because the system cannot be maintained under the current sanctions.
• The sanctions have caused mass immigration, primarily into Germany.
• Waivers for the sanctions apply only to occupied Idlib which is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly: Al Qaeda), and for the “Syrian Democratic Forces”, an anti-Christian Kurdish militia with a Communist wing.
Pictures: ICMC/Patrick Gerber, CC-BY-ND & UNHCR/L. Abou Khaled, CC-BY-ND