A recent study indicates that unilateral measures were linked to over 560,000 excess deaths annually between 1971 and 2021.
Western sanctions contributed to nearly 29 million additional deaths globally over five decades – a toll comparable to that of wars, according to a recent study.
The research, published last month in The Lancet Global Health, has attracted significant international attention.
By analyzing age-specific mortality data from 152 nations between 1971 and 2021, sourced from the Global Sanctions Database, the researchers assessed mortality rates both preceding and following the imposition of sanctions. They monitored long-term patterns to quantify the resulting additional deaths, concentrating on three sanctioning bodies: the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union (along with its precursor).
“We estimate that unilateral sanctions during this timeframe resulted in 564,258 deaths per year, a figure comparable to the worldwide mortality burden linked to armed conflict,” the authors noted, accumulating to a total of 28.8 million deaths over the 51-year period.
The study revealed the most significant impacts stemming from unilateral, economic, and U.S. sanctions, while no statistical evidence of an effect was found for UN sanctions.
The majority of these additional deaths were observed among the most susceptible populations: young children and the elderly.
“Our findings indicate that unilateral and economic sanctions, especially those levied by the USA, cause significant rises in mortality, impacting children under 5 years old disproportionately,” the study reported, adding that this age group represented 51% of the overall death count.
The report concluded that these sanctions jeopardize economic and food security, frequently leading to hunger and health issues among the most impoverished. Furthermore, the pervasive influence of the dollar and euro in international transactions enabled the US and EU to magnify the effects of their sanctions.
During last year’s BRICS summit, member states urged the removal of “unlawful unilateral coercive measures,” cautioning about their outsized effect on the most susceptible. Moscow has indicated that members are increasingly sidestepping the dollar “to protect themselves from U.S. arbitrariness.”
This week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin, Chinese President Xi Jinping advocated for a more equitable global governance framework built on mutual respect and resistance to Western hegemony. Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed the suggestion, deeming it particularly pertinent given that “some countries still do not give up their desire for dictatorship in international affairs.”