In 2019 and 2020, nearly $137 million in humanitarian assistance and other supplies were delivered “to Syrian companies linked to human rights abusers, war profiteers, sanctioned individuals and other figures associated with the regime of Bashar Al-Assad”, according to a study relayed by the site Daraj. Published Tuesday, October 25 by the NGOs Syrian Legal Development Program (SLDP) and Observatory of Political and Economic Networks (Open), the report shows that “many members of circles close to the regime [syrien] benefited from aid money” UN finances.
Like Fadi Ahmed, whose company, Desert Falcon, received more than $1 million in 2019 and 2020 from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in the form of clothing, office equipment and various components. This man was the head of the pro-government National Defense Forces militia in Damascus, accused of a massacre in the Damascene district of Tadamon in 2013.
Or Samer Foz, one of the owners of the five-star Four Seasons hotel in Damascus where UN staff spent “tens of millions of dollars”. This Syrian businessman was sanctioned in 2019 by the United States for his support for the Syrian regime.
40 billion in aid since 2011
Other companies belonging to people close to Bashar El-Assad’s regime have also received millions of dollars in aid, notably from the World Food Programme.
The authors of the report write:
“When humanitarian aid is systematically diverted, under the pretext of protecting the neutrality of humanitarian operations, it can become in the hands of the government a dangerous weapon against its own people.”
To this indictment of the United Nations, Francesco Galtieri, an official of the UN office in Syria, replies that the UN agencies are very attentive to all these questions.
According to consistent figures, more than $40 billion in aid has been channeled to Syria since the start of the war in 2011, more than half of which through the United Nations.
The conflict has claimed at least half a million lives and displaced millions of people, inside or outside the country.