Independent journalist Vanessa Beeley, who resides in Damascus, reported in her Telegram channel yesterday that she had interviewed Marwa Osman, a Lebanese journalist and commentator, to discuss the impact of the West’s cruel anti-Syrian sanctions on the current rescue and relief efforts in Syria. Osman reported that Syria had already been devastated by U.S. sanctions before the earthquakes, which she said worked on three levels.
“The first level is on the financial institutions in Syria that are directly linked to the government,” she said. “If you want to wire money from outside of Syria to any bank in Syria, it has to go through the central bank of Syria, which has been sanctioned since the early days of the war. Which means if you want to transfer and wire money to the people affected by the earthquake to their bank accounts in Syria, you can’t, because it’s still under sanctions….
