The United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
has procured tens of millions of dollars in contracts with companies linked to Syrian government-backed individuals sanctioned for human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
abuses, according to a report by two non-governmental groups.
Syria’s uprising turned civil war that started in 2011 has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. More than 80 percent of Syrians now live in poverty, leaving much of the population dependent on humanitarian assistance.
Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
, with military support from Russia, Iran
...They hate and the Lebanese jihadist group
Hezbollah has since been able to reclaim much of the country. But Syria continues to spiral from a crippling economic crisis. Recently, a cholera outbreak that has infected some 20,000 people, underscored the scope of the crisis.A report analyzing the UN’s top 100 suppliers in Syria in 2019 and 2020 by the non-profit Observatory of Political and Economic Networks and the non-governmental organization Syrian Legal Development Program concluded that almost half of the procured contracts in those two years were with suppliers that were involved in human rights abuses or may have profited from them. The report was published on Tuesday.
Almost a quarter of contracts the UN procured those two years went to companies owned or partially owned by individuals sanctioned by the United States, United Kingdom or European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
for human rights abuses, worth a total of around $68 million.
Among them is Fadi Saqr, who is close to Assad and heads the National Defense Forces in Damascus, a pro-government militia that notably executed dozens of blindfolded prisoners in 2013 and buried them in a mass grave near the Syrian capital.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Damascus, Syria, did not immediately comment on the report.