BEIRUT (AP) – The lines stretch for miles outside filling stations in Syrian cities, with an average wait of five hours to fill a tank. At bakeries, people push and shove during long, chaotic waits until it is their turn to collect the quota of two bread packs per family.
On a street in the capital of Damascus, beggars take motorists and passers-by and plead for food or money. Medicine, baby milk and nappies can hardly be found.
As Syria marks the tenth anniversary of the start of its civil war on Monday, President Bashar Assad may still be in power, supported by Russia and Iran. But millions of people are being pushed deeper into poverty, and a majority of households can barely scrape together enough to secure their next meal.
As Assad prepares for a fourth seven-year term in the spring, some have questioned whether he can survive the sharp economic downturn and anger in areas under his control. Poverty levels are now worse than at any stage during the 10-year conflict.
“Life here is a portrait of everyday humiliation and suffering,” said one woman in Damascus. Her husband lost his job at an electronics store last month, and now the family is pulling on meager savings that are rapidly evaporating. The woman said she started teaching part-time to help. Like others, she spoke on condition that her identity remain hidden, for fear of arrest.
With two children and an elderly father to look after, she said that life had become unbearably difficult and that she was gripped by the fear of the future. Until recently, she was able to smuggle medicine from her father out of Lebanon, but now Lebanon has its own collapse and shortages.
‘I go to the souk and really have to think of priorities and buy only the necessities to cook. “I try not to look at the other things that my children can like,” she said.
The decade of war began unfathomable destruction on Syria. Nearly half a million people were killed and more than half of the pre-war population of 23 million were displaced, whether inside or outside the country’s borders, the world’s worst displacement crisis since World War II. Infrastructure is in ruins.
Through most of the conflict, Assad was able to protect Syrians in the government from unbearable economic pain. Though rarely did fuel, medicine and other supplies hold up and the currency rose.
Now he has gained a decisive advantage in the war with Russia and the aid of Iran, and his grip on territories under his control is indisputable and the rebellion is largely crushed.
But the economy fell apart at breakneck speed. It has been hit by a double whammy of new, sweeping US sanctions imposed last year and the financial collapse in Lebanon, Syria’s most important link with the outside world. It was too much, in addition to the tension of the war, corruption of the government, other Western sanctions that had been 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 crashed, now at 4000 Syrian pounds against the dollar on the black market, compared to 700 a year ago and 47 at the start of the conflict in 2011.
“If you put all these things together, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing increasing food insecurity increase,” said Arif Hussein, chief economist at the UN World Food Program. “Not only in breadth, which means many people, but also deep, which means that people today are closer to hunger than ever before.”
Residents of government areas who spoke to The Associated Press paint a bleak picture. Prices rise several times a day. Families now rely on electronic “smart cards” to secure subsidized and rationed goods that include fuel, gas cans, tea, sugar, rice and bread. To collect them, they wait in long lines, pushing regularly, pushing and fighting.
At gas stations, some park their cars at night to get a seat in the queue and return early in the morning to refill their cars. Residents drive together or walk where possible to waste fuel.
REPUBLIC OF ROWS
“This is the ‘Republic of Rows’,” said Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian journalist in London who discusses Syrian issues for the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
Despite the growing discontent, Assad’s rule 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 have no time to think about the transition or the constitution or reforms because they are busy all the time. ”
Food prices have risen by 230% in the past year, and many Syrians say they are consuming them by searching for essential goods that are no longer available. Many families sit for months without meat and fruit. At vegetable markets, people often buy one piece because they can no longer afford it. The monthly salary of a government employee is now worth $ 15- $ 20, compared to about $ 170 a year ago.
In the capitals, many people plan their day according to the electricity schedule, as the power is cut four hours for every two it is, sometimes longer. Unlike in Lebanon, where neighborhood generators are institutionalized, only wealthy people can afford it in Syria.
In the winter, with a lack of gas bottles, many used to use poisonous old wood heaters for heat, while children were seen groping around in the trash to burn something.
The simultaneous crises in Lebanon and Syria have fed each other. Where Lebanese once traveled to Damascus to buy cheaper medicines, textiles and other good quality goods, Lebanon’s subsidized goods, including fuel and medicine, are smuggled to Syria, exacerbating the economic crisis in Lebanon.
A Syrian media activist who goes by the pseudonym of Omar Hariri said rations of bread, petrol, cooking gas and diesel cover barely 10% of people’s needs. Waiting hours in line has become a way of life, he said.
“I have a family member who took his turn in January after two months of cold, and he was forced to buy against 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 were all “factors that exploded simultaneously.” Now the regime no longer has sources of income, and therefore they are pushing money up and fueling inflation, he said.
Frustration is expressed even among Assad’s most loyal supporters. One lawmaker recently questioned why Iran and Russia are not helping by sending oil and wheat.
The government has detained at least nine people over the past six weeks, including a prominent social media TV anchor who is considered critical.
“The regime is trying to rebuild the walls of fear, to remind people that even if you are loyalists, you can not criticize us,” Hamidi said.
Assad takes the blame on the US and calls its sanctions economic terrorism that the people want to starve. The shift in regional dynamics increases his confidence; some Arab countries in the Gulf that supported the Syrian opposition are now openly criticizing the sanctions.
‘In 10 years of war, the (Syrian) regime has not offered a single concession. There is a general feeling that things can only get worse, ‘Hamidi said.
“There is no horizon, no hope.”
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Associated Press author Bassem Mroue in Beirut reported.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring Uprising at https://apnews.com/hub/arab-spring