Fury as World Health Organisation launch campaign to warn Syrians about dangers of smoking — as they flee ISIS
Critics slam taxpayer funded health chiefs for getting their priorities 'completely wrong' during world's bloodiest civil war
TAXPAYER-funded health chiefs have launched a campaign to warn Syrians of the dangers of smoking – as they flee the murderous Islamic State in the world’s bloodiest civil war.
An estimated 280,000 people have died in the conflict and civilians live in constant fear of being butchered by the barbaric sect or pulverised by a Russian missile.
But the World Health Organisation – which receives more than £17million a year from British taxpayers – says they should really be worried about lung cancer.
The UN health agency said “notwithstanding the current crisis in the country”, tobacco and shisha consumption “endangers the health and future life of smokers and people around them”.
The organisation also called for the introduction of plain cigarette packaging in the country to “reduce attractiveness and glamour”.
Critics last night accused the WHO of being “grossly insensitive” and getting their priorities “completely wrong”.
Elizabeth Hoff, the WHO representative to Syria, said: “Many youths, women and school-age children in Syria have taken to shisha smoking believing that it is fashionable and less harmful than cigarettes.
“The truth is that shisha smoking is 20 times more dangerous than cigarette smoking, and shisha users are at risk for some of the same diseases as cigarette smokers such as oral cancer, lung and stomach cancer, cancer of the throat and impaired reproductive capacities.”
And the Syrian Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Ahmad Khlefawy, supported the WHO, saying the current crisis “cannot be an excuse for Syrians to endanger their lives”.
But UKIP leader Nigel Farage, a smoker, said: “These taxpayer funded international organisations have their priorities completely wrong.
“If I was living in Syria I would be more worried about the risks of Islamic State than a comforting cigarette.”
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Alex Wild, from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It’s astonishing that the WHO sees fit to lecture the Syrian people on the risks of smoking while they live in fear of murderous terrorists and regime bombing raids.
“If the WHO is going to persist with such grossly insensitive and patronising campaigns, the UK government must reconsider the vast amounts of taxpayers’ money it hands to these people.”
Smoking is illegal within Islamic State and those caught with cigarettes face an on-the-spot fine and the threat of lashes or torture.
Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said: “It’s shocking how out of touch the World Health Organisation is with ordinary people.
“Syrians are fleeing for their lives yet these appalling unelected puritans think now is the time to tell them not smoke.
“The only people who will take comfort from this report are the fanatical anti-smoking extremists within ISIS whose barbarous treatment of smokers is reminiscent of the Dark Ages.”
Drew Johnson, from the Taxpayers’ Protection Alliance, said: “You really have to seriously question WHO’s policy agenda and sanity.
“They are worried about ordinary Syrians endangering their lives by smoking when - on a daily basis - these same Syrians are being barrel-bombed and starved into submission and death.
“It is ludicrous.
“As a publicly funded body, WHO should be concentrating on its core mission of global health security, not bringing itself into disrepute by issuing this sort of ill-conceived and out-of-touch advice.”
A WHO spokesman said last night: “Just because you have an emergency, it doesn’t mean everything else should stop.
“Obviously people are being killed by bombs but tobacco is still killing people and they should not be forgotten.”
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