Six allies of Assad face UK sanctions
SYRIA: Dominic Raab has condemned the “brutality” in Syria as he announced sanctions against six figures linked to Bashar Assad’s regime.
Syria’s foreign minister Faisal Miqdad was among the group of military officers and businessmen with links to the regime who were subjected to asset freezes and travel bans.
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DOMINIC RAAB has condemned the “brutality” in a decade of conflict in Syria as he announced sanctions against six figures linked to Bashar Assad’s regime.
Syria’s foreign minister Faisal Miqdad was among the group of military officers and businessmen with links to the regime who were subjected to asset freezes and travel bans.
They are the first measures to be taken in relation to Syria under the UK’s sanctions regime, which came into force following the end of the Brexit transition period. “The Assad regime has subjected the Syrian people to a decade of brutality for the temerity of demanding peaceful reform,” Foreign Secretary Mr Raab said.
“Today, we are holding six more individuals from the regime to account for their wholesale assault on the very citizens they should be protecting.”
Those sanctioned are: foreign minister Mr Miqdad, presidential adviser Luna al-Shibl, financier Yassar Ibrahim, who the Foreign Office claimed acts as a front for Mr Assad’s hold on the Syrian economy, businessman Muhammad Bara’ al-Qatirji, and military officers major general
Malik Aliaa and major general Zaid Salah.
The news comes as Syria marked the 10th anniversary yesterday of the start of its uprisingturned-civil war. President Assad remains in power, propped up by Russia and Iran.
But millions of people are being pushed deeper into poverty, and a majority of households can hardly scrape together enough to secure their next meal.
Long queues for petrol stations and quotas of two packs of bread a day for families show how the country is struggling for basics.
In the capital, Damascus, beggars accost motorists and passers-by, pleading for food or money while medicines, baby milk and nappies can hardly be found.
With Mr Assad preparing to run for a fourth seven-year presidential term in the spring, some have questioned whether he can survive the sharp economic deterioration and anger in areas under his control.
Poverty levels are now worse than at any point throughout the 10-year conflict.
“Life here is a portrait of everyday humiliation and suffering,” said one woman in Damascus.
Her husband lost his job at an electronics store last month, and now the family is drawing on meagre savings that are evaporating fast.
The woman said she had taken up teaching part-time to help make ends meet.
Like others, she spoke on condition her identity remains hidden, fearing arrest.
With two children and an elderly father to care for, she said life had become unbearably difficult and she is gripped by anxiety for the future. Until recently, she could smuggle in her father’s medicines from Lebanon, but now Lebanon has its own meltdown and shortages.
“I go to the souk and really have to think of priorities, buying only the bare necessities for cooking.
“I try not to look at the other stuff my children might like,” she said. The decade of war has wreaked unfathomable destruction on Syria.
Nearly half a million people have been killed and more than half the pre-war population of 23m displaced, whether inside or outside the country’s borders, the world’s worst displacement crisis since the Second World War.
Assad regime has subjected the Syrian people to a decade of brutality. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.