Syrians Fear Hunger over Record Currency Devaluation

Internally displaced people sit outside tents at a makeshift camp in Azaz, Syria February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Internally displaced people sit outside tents at a makeshift camp in Azaz, Syria February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
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Syrians Fear Hunger over Record Currency Devaluation

Internally displaced people sit outside tents at a makeshift camp in Azaz, Syria February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Internally displaced people sit outside tents at a makeshift camp in Azaz, Syria February 19, 2020. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Umm Ahmed and her family have survived years of war, but now the mother of five is terrified uncontrolled devaluation of the Syrian pound will prevent her from feeding her children.

"Since the war started, we've tasted all sorts of suffering," said the 39-year-old, displaced three times by fighting in the opposition stronghold of Idlib.

"I think hunger will be among the next."

The value of the Syrian pound has plummeted with dizzying speed in recent days on the informal market, sending prices skyrocketing, shuttering shops, and sparking unprecedented protests.

Umm Ahmed said she was so alarmed she was considering buying flour in bulk to start hoarding supplies.

In Idlib, the increase in the price of bread has sparked protests against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militants in charge of the region of three million people -- around half displaced by the conflict and many dependent on aid.

Some shops have closed, an AFP correspondent reported.

In recent days the value of the Syrian pound on the black market has started to tumble even faster from one record to the next.

From Saturday to Monday alone, the exchange rate soared from 2,300 to more than 3,000 pounds to the dollar, more than four times the official rate of around 700. It hovered close to 3,000 on Wednesday.

Before the conflict, it stood at 47.

Analysts say the recent spike is likely due to worries ahead of the introduction of new US sanctions from June 15, and the sudden fall from grace of tycoon and cousin of the president, Rami Makhlouf, which has set other top businessmen on edge.

Prices have risen across the country, though the Turkish lira is used in some parts of the opposition-held north.

The government has blamed the unofficial devaluation on US sanctions, and "manipulation" of the exchange rate.

But the rapid deterioration has sparked unprecedented criticism in regime-held areas, including in the southern city of Sweida, where dozens have demonstrated for three days since Sunday, boldly chanting against the president.

In the capital Damascus, one lawmaker said Sunday that part of the blame for the unofficial devaluation lay with the "wrong policies practiced by the government".

Another demanded action from the central bank, which increased the official exchange rate from 434 to 700 in March, but has since maintained that peg.



Scotland Awaits Famous Son as Trump Visits Mother’s Homeland 

A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Scotland Awaits Famous Son as Trump Visits Mother’s Homeland 

A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)

Donald Trump will fly into Scotland on Friday for a private visit to the land where his mother was born and spent her childhood on the remote Isle of Lewis.

"It's great to be home, this was the home of my mother," he said when he arrived on his last visit in 2023.

Born Mary Anne MacLeod, Trump's mum emigrated to the United States when she was 18. She then met and married Fred Trump, kickstarting the family's meteoric rise that has led their son, Donald, all the way to the White House.

During his visit the current US president, who is six months into his second term, plans to officially open his latest golf course in northeastern Aberdeen -- making him the owner of three such links in Scotland.

Although Donald Trump has talked openly about his father Fred -- a self-made millionaire and property developer whose own father emigrated from Germany -- he remains more discreet about his mother, who died in 2000 at the age of 88.

She was born in 1912 on Lewis, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides in northwest Scotland, and grew up in the small town of Tong.

Trump visited the humble family home in 2008, pausing for a photo in front of the two-storey house. He has cousins who still live in the house, which has been modernized since Mary Anne MacLeod's time but remains modest, standing just around 200 meters (650 feet) from the sea.

Its slate roof and grey walls are a world away from Trump's luxury Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, or his gold-adorned apartment in Trump Tower, New York.

According to the British press, which based its reports on local documents, Trump's grandfather was a fisherman.

MacLeod was the 10th and last child of the family, and her first language was Gaelic before she learnt English at school.

Life was tough on Lewis after World War I, which claimed the lives of many of the island's young men. Following in the footsteps of her older sister, and so many other Scots over the decades, she decided to emigrate to the United States.

MacLeod boarded the SS Transylvania from Glasgow in 1930, bound for New York.

- Pink Rolls-Royce -

On her immigration papers she wrote she was a "domestic" when asked about her profession. One of Trump's sisters recalled that MacLeod had worked as a nanny in a wealthy family.

But a few years later her life turned around when she reportedly met Fred Trump at an evening dance. They were married in 1936 in Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side, and MacLeod became a US citizen in 1942.

As Fred Trump built and expanded his property empire in the city by constructing middle-class homes in districts such as Queens and Brooklyn, Mary Anne devoted herself to charitable works.

"Even in old age, rich and respected and with her hair arranged in a dynamic orange swirl, she would drive a rose-colored Rolls-Royce to collect coins from laundry machines in apartment blocks that belonged to the Trumps," the Times wrote this month.

Photos of her hobnobbing with New York high society show her with her blonde hair swept up in a bun, reminiscent of her son's distinctive side-swept coiffure.

She was "a great beauty", Donald Trump has gushed in one of his rare comments about his mother, adding she was also "one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known".

And on X he has pointed to "great advice from my mother: 'Trust in God and be true to yourself'".

In 2018 then-British prime minister Theresa May presented Trump with his family tree tracing his Scottish ancestors.

Less than 20,000 people live on Lewis, and MacLeod is a common surname.

Residents tell how Mary Anne MacLeod regularly returned to her roots until her death, while one of the president's sisters won over the locals by making a large donation to a retirement home.

But Donald Trump has not impressed everyone in Scotland, and protests against his visit are planned on Saturday in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Earlier this year in April a banner fluttered from a shop in the port of Stornoway, the island's largest town. "Shame on you Donald John," it proclaimed.

Local authorities have asked for the banner to be taken down, but it is due to tour the island this summer with residents invited to sign it.