United Nations, September 10 (RHC)--The blockade of the United States against Cuba appears today as the most unjust, severe and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions applied against any country, the Cuban Mission to the United Nations denounced in a statement.

In the document, the mission stressed that this siege is the main obstacle to the development of the Caribbean country, as well as to the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals, reports Prensa Latina.

The intensification of the blockade remains as the central axis of Washington's policy towards the island, with increasingly notable effects in its extraterritorial application, the text underlines.

The statement notes that because of their declared purpose and the political, legal and administrative foundation on which they are based, these sanctions qualify as an act of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and as an act of economic warfare under the terms of the 1909 London Naval Conference.

During the nearly 60 years of its application, the blockade has had accumulated damages on Cuba estimated at  138,843.4 million dollars.

Only from April 2018 to March 2019, these measures of economic aggression have increased, causing losses to Cuba in the order of 4,343.6 million dollars, according to the statement.

The statement dds that Cuba will not cease in its efforts to overthrow this hostile and aggressive policy, whose ultimate goal is to reverse the will of the people to build an independent, sovereign, socialist and prosperous nation, on the basis of their right to self-determination, the communiqué highlights.

Since 1992, the UN General Assembly has approved 27 resolutions calling on the US government to put an end, without any conditions, to its policy of blockade against Cuba.

Upon coming to power, President Donald Trump changed the steps taken by his predecesor Barack Obama and resumed the hostile policy towards Cuba, with the intensification of sanctions, travel restrictions and cuts in the amount of remittances, among others.