Damascus – “We are on the brink of a famine if it hasn’t already begun,” said Ghadir, a 36-year-old teacher at a rural Damascus school, when Al Jazeera Net asked about the suffering of Syrians at the dawn of the new year.
For 29-year-old Suba, a worker and housewife to a displaced family from rural Aleppo to Damascus, she was forced to sell her diesel fuel allocation to pay off some of her mounting debts. This has deprived her and her family of heating in their incomplete apartment, which turns into a “fridge” at night, according to her.
This is just a snippet of the hardships endured by Syrians in regime-controlled areas with the arrival of the new year and the continuation of price hikes, along with the exacerbation of the service crisis as electricity cuts increase, reaching up to 16 hours a day in most areas, leaving residents without heating and the ability to cook on electricity amid scarce household gas and its soaring black market prices.
About 90% of Syrians have been living below the poverty line since 2021, according to UN reports.
Fear of Famine
Food prices, basic goods, and service costs continue to rise in the Syrian regime-controlled areas. With the start of the new year, the increase has reached prices of meats, vegetables, fruits, and most food items, in addition to the costs of essential services like transportation, communication, healthcare, and beyond.
The Syrians’ suffering has intensified with the announcement that the World Food Programme will cease its aid program across Syria at the start of this year due to a lack of funding, after previously providing food and in-kind assistance to 5.5 million people spread across all Syrian provinces.
Zaki Mahshi, a Syrian economist and researcher at the London School of Economics, commented to Al Jazeera Net that the cessation of the programme’s assistance in Syria will have significant negative repercussions, especially since, according to official estimates, half of Syrian families suffer from food insecurity, meaning an increase in poverty rates and a repercussion on public health that could lead the country to famine.
The Syrian economist noted that areas in Syria have experienced famine previously due to the regime’s siege during the war, but there is a real threat today of a more widespread famine across Syria.
A market in Damascus almost devoid of buyers (Al Jazeera)
Deteriorating Living Conditions
The researcher sees that the deterioration of Syrians’ living conditions at the beginning of the current year is due to reasons, some stemming from years of war and others old but recurring, which were the primary cause of the movement in 2011, and later the armed conflict that is still ongoing.
The researcher lists the reasons as follows:
- The tyranny of despotism, deepening monopolies, and the control of crony capitalism over the economy or wealth sources in Syria, which have continued and expanded even more during the years of war.
- The significant deterioration of the productive economy; Syria lost over 60% of its gross domestic product, which is largely reflected in the living standards of Syrians.
- Syria’s heavy reliance on imports, especially food items like wheat, which increases the trade deficit, as it exceeded €3 billion, with imports amounting to €4 billion against less than €1 billion in exports.
- The growing external debt on Syria, with its dependency on Iran for oil imports, which is recorded as debt on Syria, a problem for future generations to bear.
- The continuation of economic sanctions on the regime, which it succeeds in converting their negative impact onto the population at the expense of shielding crony capitalists, the latter being a major financial resource for it.
- The differing entities controlling areas in Syria, weakening economic integration at the national level, in addition to a significant portion of Syria’s natural riches falling outside the central government’s control in Damascus.
Despite the researcher’s skepticism about reaching a political solution among the conflicting parties in Syria in the foreseeable future, he affirms that the absence of such a solution will lead to the ongoing and exacerbated livelihood and humanitarian crises in Syria.
The Syrian economist emphasizes that the problem is not only that most Syrians have been below the poverty line since 2021, according to the World Bank ($1.9 per day per person), but it is also deepening with their level constantly falling below that, signaling an impending disaster.
In 2023, the Syrian pound lost more than 52% of its value, with the dollar exchange rate reaching 14600 pounds in January against 7000 pounds at the start of 2023.
The average salary in Syria’s public sector is around 250,000 pounds ($17), while in the private sector, it rises to 600,000 pounds ($41).
Reality by Numbers
A study conducted by the local newspaper “Qasion” noted that the average cost of living for a five-member family in regime-controlled areas had exceeded 12 million pounds (about $850) with the advent of the new year, up from an estimated 9.5 million pounds ($650.68) in September.
The study, published last December, pointed to a three-fold increase in the average cost of living throughout 2023, while wages could only cover 1.5% of living expenses.
Over just three months, from September to December, the study found that the prices of most staple food items, based on average market prices in the capital Damascus, had risen.
It noted a 30% increase in red meat and poultry prices, 20.4% in sweets, while eggs prices rose by 21.4%, and fruit prices by 22.9%. The price of rice increased by 20.6%.
The Damascus government increased fuel prices by up to 200% in several stages last year, while drug prices saw three hikes, the last of which was in December by 70% to 100%, with unsubsidized bread prices doubling and a reduction in subsidized bread recipients.
At the start of the year, the Syrian Trading Corporation, affiliated with the regime’s government, raised the prices of subsidized provisions listed on the smart card. The institution’s director, Ziad Al-Hazaa, stated that the increase was modest compared to market prices, due to new contracts and hence a change in pricing as per the new service provider’s costs.
Meanwhile, about 12.1 million Syrians, more than half of the population, suffer from food insecurity, according to the latest reports from the UN World Food Programme.
Lifeline
Given the ongoing price hikes and the plummeting purchasing power of salaries, some Syrian families in the regime’s areas are turning to remittances from children, relatives, and friends abroad to meet their daily essential needs. Ghadir remarks, “If I depended on my salary for living, I would’ve died of starvation, as it barely equals the price of one kilogram of meat.”
Despite a report by the local newspaper “Athar Press,” which is close to the regime, revealing last week that remittances to one of the capital’s companies had increased by 30% compared to the previous year, most Syrians resort to “informal” money transfers due to high transfer fees charged by those companies and the higher dollar exchange rate on the parallel market compared to the central bank, which is close to 15,000 pounds per dollar.
Researcher Zaki Mahshi points out that the World Bank will soon release a new study indicating that about one-third of Syrian families have at least one person who has migrated outside Syria, with most of them relying on remittances from expatriates that have become a substantial part of these families’ income. He estimates that remittances to Syria range between $5 and $8 million per day.
He adds that while the regime attempted to monopolize the transfer through its channels, last year witnessed numerous attempts to narrow the exchange rate gap between the central bank and the parallel market, but the bulk of transfers are still made through unofficial channels due to the persistent gap.
Mahshi doubts that the regime would benefit from the remittances, even if made through its bank and companies, as the hard currency entering through them would barely suffice to import some essential goods at the foreign price.
According to Mahshi, remittances will not serve as a primary source of foreign currency for the regime, as it secures it through informal trade, manufacturing the drug captagon and smuggling it, among other illicit activities.
Wala, a Damascus-based researcher in political economy who preferred to go by her first name, believes that the remittances sent by expatriates to their families in regime areas have created a new class within Syrian society over the past few years. This class is neither of moderate means nor in extreme poverty.
In her comments to Al Jazeera Net, she indicates that these remittances play a key role in keeping the political and economic systems in the country afloat; without them, Syria would be unable to import basic materials for nutrition, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and other goods to ensure the operation of vital sectors in the country.
