Credit: © UNICEF/Velasquez  / At a health center health center on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela, a lack of spare parts has rendered mobile health units and ambulances unusable. (5 June 2019)

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

UNITED NATIONS  –  NEW  YORK –  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an easing of sanctions against countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran to allow their medical systems to fight COVID-19 to limit its global spread as the virus ravages the world. UNHCHR Michelle Bachelet said last week in Geneva that sectoral sanctions should urgently be re-evaluated in countries facing the coronavirus pandemic, in light of their potentially debilitating impact on the health sector and human rights. The UN official said a variety of sanctions may impede medical efforts in Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, among other nations hit by sanctions. 

“The majority of these states have frail or weak health systems. Progress in upholding human rights is essential to improve those systems – but obstacles to the import of vital medical supplies, including over-compliance with sanctions by banks, will create long-lasting harm to vulnerable communities. The populations in these countries are in no way responsible for the policies being targeted by sanctions, and to varying degrees have already been living in a precarious situation for prolonged periods.”

-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet

In Venezuela, some hospitals regularly suffer water and electricity cutoffs and lack medicines, equipment, disinfectant and soap, Bachelet noted.  While this situation pre-dates the imposition of sectoral sanctions, easing them could mean more resources could be allocated to treating and preventing the epidemic, she said.  In Iran, where at least 1,800 people have died from COVID-19, human rights reports have repeatedly emphasized the impact of sectoral sanctions on access to essential medicines and medical equipment – including respirators and protective equipment for health-care worker, the UN high official said.  U.S.-imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s airline and oil industries are decimating social spending and leading to shortages of food and medicine, she said.

Venezuela, Cuba Welcome  UN  Call For Easing Of Sanctions

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, joins the righteous, humane and urgent world clamor, considering that: ‘at this decisive moment, sectoral sanctions should be reduced or suspended…,”

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said  on Twitter

Given the current COVID-19 situation, today, China, Russia, Iran, Syria, DPR of Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua & Venezuela addressed SG @antonioguterres so that the UN expresses strong support for the lifting of illegal coercive measures. #SanctionsAreACrime & they must stop now! pic.twitter.com/IQ4NIV2RoO

— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) March 26, 2020