Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, IRSC president said: “Since the US sanctions have blocked Iran’s access to SWIFT, despite of the amounts of money which have been promised, not even a dollar of foreign aid has been paid to Iran following the deadly flood in the country.”
“the recent flood was highly destructive, however, the foreign aid including blankets, tents, personal hygiene products, etc. have been dispatched to Iran from countries like Kuwait, Turkey, Azerbaijan, France, Germany, Armenia, Pakistan and others”.
Exceptional rainfalls since March 19 have flooded some 1,900 cities and villages across Iran, claiming over 70 lives and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to Iranian water and agriculture infrastructures. Floods have affected several provinces in the north and west of the country including, Golestan, Mazandaran, Lorestan, and Khuzestan.
Ali Asqar Payvandi noted that although Iranians living abroad along with foreign countries have announced they are ready to help Iran financially, “due to the SWIFT blockage, no money has been transferred to Iran so far.”
He also said that the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has offered 500,000 euros and there is an amount of money the EU has allocated to Iran. Therefore, we have asked the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to remove the barriers on the way of financial aid to Iran.