Goal cannot afford to have aid suspended

It would be a major setback for Goal, one of Ireland’s leading charities, and also for the tens of thousands of people relying on it for support, if its funding were to be hit by news of a US probe into key aspects of the organisation’s work in Syria, the biggest programme in the charity’s history.

Outrageously, civilians and hospitals are now being bombed and shelled there by opposing sides in this brutal war waged against its own people by Assad’s ruthless government, a regime that will stop at nothing in its desperate bid to cling to power.

To date, the internecine war has led to an internal displacement of 7.6m people in Syria, leaving over 12m more in dire need of humanitarian assistance. More than a quarter of a million people have been killed in the fighting and over 4m have fled to neighbouring countries as refugees.