There’s been a study in the Lancet about how unilateral sanctions cause comparable deaths to bombing the country. A key finding was that this only goes for the kind of sanctions imposed by the US that specifically aim for cutting the population off from food, medical supplies etc. to stoke unrest and incite regime change, not for the kind of sanctions that are used by the UN, which specifically exclude goods the people need for their survival.

US sanctions are designed to be an act of siege warfare.