Thread by @Elizrael

Some indicators from Syria today:
* Syrian lira hits all-time low against the $ (1340 lira = $1)
* Prices of vegetables, grain, fruit hitting all-time highs.
* Severe bread shortages across the country.
* Hours of electricity reduced as people remain indoors due to COVID.

Syrians wait in line yesterday for distribution of subsidized sugar and oil in Mezzeh, a middle-class neighborhood in Damascus, through the Smart Card system. Syrians can't socially distance as they wait in lines for hours to buy food, receive salaries
Photo by @lensdimashqi

Syrian soldiers steal onions from a field in Afes, near Saraqib, Idlib.
The price of onions in Syria & all other basic goods skyrocketed in recent days due to price-gougers exploiting COVID panic. Price of onions in Tartous yday was ~1,300 lira per kilo ($1)

Crowds gather in Jaramana today, on the outskirts of Damascus, to receive humanitarian aid from the Red Crescent.

Prices of all foodstuffs in Syria continue to rise due to shortages of subsidized food, widespread corruption among sellers of subsidized goods, panic buying due to COVID & profiteering. This is while income is cut for many reliant on shuttered businesses due to COVID lockdown.

When the Syrian lira significantly depreciated in late 2019, profiteers hiked the prices of locally hatched eggs. Syrians would joke that the chickens are earning in $. Now with further increases, the joke is that the chickens found out about COVID-19 & stopped laying eggs.

Video by a former Syrian soldier, an Alawi from Lattakia, expressing anger about the sacrifices regime supporters made & got nothing in return. "The only thing this country gave me is the flag in which my brother was wrapped" (died fighting)
facebook.com/abo.alleth.16/…

"Why should I bring a child into this world? To grow up in the dark [no electricity], to have quotas of bread, of diesel, of benzine?... No one cares about us... When you needed us, we did not argue with you, we went to [sacrifice] our blood & souls"
h/t @putintintin1

The price of a kilo of tomatoes hit 1,100-1,200 lira ($1) today in Lattakia and Homs, a bit less around Damascus. The average salary of a state employee in Syria is about $50. The regime banned exports but cross-border smuggling is continuing.

A Syrian pro-regime newspaper reports that traders in regime areas are using Western sanctions as an excuse for raising prices & that authorities are failing to prevent the price-gouging alwatanonline.com/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D…

Eyad Hassan, a prominent Alawi businessman from the Tartous countryside & popular pro-regime but anti-corruption social media personality checks the high prices of food in the market. "People are hungry. People's salaries are not enough for 2 plates of salad... People are tired"

He calls of the Minister of Economy and Trade, Mohammad a-Shaar, to resign. "People have given up hope that anyone will listen to them.... You [plural] worked to weaken the faith of the citizen and his state"
facebook.com/aead.hasan.31/…

Pro-regime paper reporting on how Syrians are forced to buy single pieces of fruit and vegetables because they can no longer afford a whole kilogram
aliqtisadi.com/1755498-%D9%85…

The Syrian gov will halt the distribution of subsidized tea & cooking oil due to shortages. The plan to subsidize ghee & matteh (used to make a caffeinated drink) appear to have been shelved aliqtisadi.com/1755728-%D8%A8…

Photo taken this week by a Syrian citizen of a state-run store of Syria for Trade in Damascus selling subsidized and price-controlled goods vs. photo of an SFT store taken during a visit of the governor of Lattakia. In reality SFT stores across the country lack supplies.

Syrians wait in line for hours in two suburbs of Damascus to purchase subsidized rice & sugar. They are rationed 1 kilo per person per month (with caps for large families). On each kilo, the buyer saves about 300 lira, or ¢18.

Prices of basic food items continue to rise across Syria.
A contact near Damascus who completed serving 9 years in the Syrian Army last year posted on FB: "Breaking: The gas crisis [shortage] will soon end because in a few days you won't have any money left to buy food & cook"

Prices of basic goods are rising across Syria: sugar, oil, hummus, medicine. In Idlib, where bread is the most expensive in all of Syria, the price of bread just went up: 600 lira for 775 grams. Malnutrition was rife in Idlib among children & adults even before this latest rise.

The Syrian gov failed to import animal feed from abroad (must be purchased in $) - its tender did not lead to any deals. Shortage of animal feed is leading to rises in prices of meat, eggs & milk. All its bids to import flour this year failed too. b2b-sy.com/news/103334933…

As the Syrian lira continues collapsing, many stores & pharmacies shut down across all areas of Syria, while others are selling goods in limited quantities. Traders fear losing money. This is directly leading to rise in prices of basic goods.

I've never seen the current level of need in Syria except for besieged areas. People are hungry across all parts of Syria. Multiple contacts are reaching out asking for money, some are people I've barely spoken to. I'm sending what I can, as are some generous friends.

Moving money into regime areas has become very expensive if done through the few hawala (transfer) offices still open, or requires personal connections with relatives of people inside.

While the Syrian lira appreciated in recent days vs. the dollars (now trading at 2425 = $1 in Damascus, after reaching over 3,000), the prices of goods have not gone down across the country. Contacts in all areas report prices continue to be beyond their reach.

An average state employee salary is about SYP 50K ($20). Today's prices: 30 eggs: 3,000 SYP ($1.2); diapers: 8,500 per pack ($3.6), one package of blood pressure medicine SYP 42,000, 1kg of rice: 1,350 ($0.6), 1kg of sugar: 1,700 SYP ($0.73)

If we compare these prices to to average monthly US salary ($4K) in terms of purchasing power, eggs in the US would cost: $240 for 30 eggs, diapers: $680, blood pressure medicine: $3,360, rice: $49 per lbs, sugar: $61 per lbs.

The Syrian Ministry of Trade & Consumer Protection has inspectors who are supposed to be preventing price hikes, but those inspectors actually contribute to price rises by demanding bribes from shop owners who raise prices. Those bribes then have to be paid by the consumer

A friend in Banyas: "We are getting closer to a breaking point where the situation turns into survival of the fittest. Large portions of people will become homeless. People can't get hold of medicine, eggs, milk... The situation is getting worse and worse."

A friend in Raqqa: "A little while ago I was in the market looking for medicine for my mother. Many medicine are missing. Child formula prices are skyrocketing. The situation is catastrophic. Thank God bread is still cheap." Bread is subsidized by the SDF: SYP 100 per 1.3 kg.

A friend in Daraa: "Today on a local Facebook page I saw a woman offering to sell her only gas cylinder. I reached out wanting to help, asking why would she sell it. She said she planned on selling it to get diapers." 2 days ago a neighbor knocked on his door asking for food.

In Idlib, the situation is particularly catastrophic, since most of the area's population is displaced and has no source of income. The bread in the area is not subsidized, now costing about SYP 1,000 for 775 grams. Malnutrition was rife even before latest price hikes.

A contact in Jableh, Lattakia, purchased a few basic items today.
Eggs: SYP 3,000
Matteh leaves: 7,000
Sugar: 1,650
1 litre of oil: 3,700
Cola: 1,100
Bottle of shampoo: 2,200
Laundry detergent: 5,000.
Total: 23,650. 47% of an average monthly salary. In US terms it would be $1,880

Most Syrians can no longer afford meat. The price of chicken is about to rise further as the price of animal feed continues to increase, forcing 70% of chicken farmers to stop production. Most animal feed has to be imported with $, which the gov lacks
eqtsad.net/news/article/3…

Speaking now to a friend in Damascus, a doctor, a regime opponent: "I am going hungry. I can't afford to buy medicine for my mother. My salary is worth $15-19. The people on the Caesar list, they have their money in Belarus, the UAE, Russia, not in the West... "

More from the doctor in Damascus: "The sanctions will just impact the people. The only change is that I'm seeing Baath supporters saying Assad needs to be replaced or we need to leave Syria, but there's no way to leave."

"But people won't go out to protest, if they go down to the streets. The presence of security forces in the main cities is overwhelming, in Damascus, Hama, Homs, they won't allow even 10 people to gather. People are terrified of what's about to come."