BEIRUT (AP): Lines stretch for miles outside gas stations in Syrian cities, with an average wait of five hours to fill a tank. In the bakeries, people push and push for long, chaotic waits in turn to pick up the share of two packets of bread a day per family.
On the streets of the capital Damascus, beggars approach drivers and pedestrians asking for food or money. It is difficult to find medicines, baby milk and diapers.
While Syria marks the tenth anniversary of Monday of the start of its revolt turned into a civil war, President Bashar Assad may still be in power, backed by Russia and Iran. But millions of people are being pushed into poverty and most households can hardly get together enough to secure the next meal.
With Assad preparing to run for a fourth seven-year presidential term in the spring, some have questioned whether he can survive the severe economic deterioration and rage in the areas under his control. Poverty levels are now worse than at any time during the ten-year conflict.
“Life here is a portrait of daily humiliation and suffering,” a Damascus woman said. Her husband lost his job last month at an electronics store and now the family is taking advantage of meager savings that are quickly evaporating. The woman said she had started teaching part-time to help meet their bosses. Like others, she spoke on the condition that her identity remain hidden, for fear of being arrested.
With two children and an elderly father to consider, he said life had become unbearably difficult and the anguish of the future favored him. Until recently, he could clandestinely introduce his father’s drugs from Lebanon, but now Lebanon has its own fault and scarcity.
“I go to the souk and I really have to think about priorities, buying only the basic necessities for cooking. I try not to look at the other things my kids might like, ”he said.
The decade of war has ended unfathomably destruction in Syria. Nearly half a million people have been killed and more than half of the pre-war population, 23 million displaced, either inside or outside the country’s borders, the world’s worst displacement crisis since World War II. The infrastructure is in ruins.
For most of the conflict, Assad was able to protect Syrians in government territory from unbearable economic pain. Although hardly at times, the state kept fuel, medicine and other supplies and the currency was strengthened.
It has now gained a decisive advantage in the war with the help of Russia and Iran, its control over the areas under its control is unquestionable and the rebellion is largely crushed.
But the economy has collapsed at an astonishing rate. It was hit by a double blow of large-scale US sanctions imposed last year and the financial downturn in Lebanon, Syria’s main link with the outside world. This turned out to be too much, in addition to the tensions of the war, government corruption, other Western sanctions in place for years, and the coronavirus pandemic.
The United Nations says more than 80% of Syrians now live in poverty and 60% are at risk of starvation. The currency has crashed, reaching 4,000 Syrian pounds to the dollar on the black market, compared to 700 a year ago and 47 at the start of the conflict in 2011.
“When you put all these things together, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing rising food insecurity and rising hunger,” said Arif Hussein, chief economist at the UN World Food Program. “Not only in its breadth, that is, a lot of people, but also in the depth, which means people are closer to hunger today than ever.”
Residents of government areas who spoke to The Associated Press draw a soma picture. Prices go up several times a day. Families now rely on electronic “smart cards” to secure subsidized and rationed products that include fuel, gas chocolates, tea, sugar, rice and bread. To pick them up, they wait in long lines, often pushing, pushing, and fighting.
At gas stations, some park their cars at night to claim a place in the queue and return early in the morning to fill the cars. Residents share a car or walk whenever possible, so as not to waste fuel.
REPUBLIC OF TAILS
“It’s the‘ Queued Republic, ’” said Ibrahim Hamidi, a London-based Syrian journalist who deals with Syrian affairs in the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
Despite growing discontent, the Assad government is not threatened, because people are too busy with their own survival, he said. “They do not have time to think about anything political. They don’t have time to think about the transition, or the constitution or the reforms, because they are busy all the time. “
Food prices have risen 230% last year and many Syrians say they are consumed looking for essential products that are no longer available. Many families spend months without meat or fruit. In vegetable markets, people usually buy a single piece, because you can’t afford more. The monthly salary of a state employee is now worth between $ 15 and $ 20, compared to about $ 170 the previous year.
In major cities, many plan their day around electric hours, as the power is cut off four hours for every two turns on, sometimes more. Unlike Lebanon, where neighborhood generators have been institutionalized, only wealthy people can be allowed in Syria.
In the winter, with a small amount of gas bottles, many resorted to using toxic old wood heaters to warm themselves, and children were seen shuffling garbage to burn anything.
The simultaneous crises in Lebanon and Syria have fed each other. Where Lebanese traveled to Damascus to buy quality, cheaper medicines, textiles and other products, now Lebanon’s subsidized goods, including fuels and medicines, are being moved to Syria, exacerbating Lebanon’s economic crisis.
A Syrian media activist bearing the pseudonym Omar Hariri said the rations of bread, petrol, cooking gas and diesel barely cover 10% of people’s needs. Waiting hours in line has become “a way of life,” he said.
“I have a relative who got the gas turn in January after spending two cold months, and was forced to buy on the black market at a much higher price,” he said.
WALLS OF FEAR
Syrian economist Samir Seifan said the collapse of Lebanon’s banking system, US sanctions and the pandemic are “factors that exploded at the same time.” Now the regime no longer has sources of income, so they are printing money and fueling inflation, he said.
Frustration manifests itself even among Assad’s most loyal supporters. A lawmaker recently wondered why Iran and Russia were not helping by sending oil and wheat.
The government has cracked down, detaining at least nine people in the past six weeks, including a prominent state television anchor for posts on social media that are considered important.
“The regime is trying to rebuild the walls of fear, to remind people that even if you are loyal you cannot criticize us,” Hamidi said.
Assad blames the United States, calling its sanctions economic terrorism that seeks to starve the people to death. Changing regional dynamics increase their confidence; some Gulf Arab countries that supported the Syrian opposition openly criticize the sanctions.
“In ten years of war, the (Syrian) regime did not offer any concessions. There is a general feeling that things can only get worse, “said Hamidi.
“There is no horizon, no hope.”
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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed the information.
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Follow AP coverage of the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring riots at https://apnews.com/hub/arab-spring