How the UN helps keep Assad in power

UN money is effectively helping to prop up a regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Nick Hopkins and Emma Beals report for The Guardian,

The UN has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to people closely associated with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of an aid programme that critics fear is increasingly at the whim of the government in Damascus, a Guardian investigation has found.

The UN has paid more than $13m to the Syrian government to boost farming and agriculture, yet the EU has banned trade with the departments in question for fear of how the money will be used.

The UN has paid at least $4m to the state-owned fuel supplier, which is also on the EU sanctions list.

The World Health Organisation has spent more than $5m to support Syria’s national blood bank – but this is being controlled by Assad’s defence department.

Two UN agencies have partnered with the Syria Trust charity, an organisation started and chaired by President Assad’s wife, Asma, spending a total of $8.5m. The first lady is under both US and EU sanctions.

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