UN Envoy Urges US, EU to Stop Sanctions against Venezuela

Following a 12-day visit, Alena Douhan, a UN special rapporteur focusing on sanctions, recommended in a preliminary report that the sanctions be lifted and the Venezuelan government be granted access to funds frozen in the United States, United Kingdom and Portugal, Reuters reported.

“Unilateral sanctions increasingly imposed by the United States, the European Union and other countries have exacerbated the abovementioned calamities,” Douhan told reporters.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Juan Guaido’s envoy to the United Nations Miguel Pizarro took to Twitter to react to the report, claiming that the economic condition of Venezuela has worsened not because of sanctions but corruption and inefficiency of the current Venezuelan government.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in recent years, has been the subject of various unilateral coercive measures imposed from the White House, which have had a negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.