Syrians Queue to Buy Bread and Fuel: Why Aren’t Russia and Iran Supporting Us?

Heating fuel, petrol and cooking gas have been in short supply in government-held areas of Syria for years, and motorists have grown used to long queues to fill up. (AFP)

As the fuel, diesel and bread crisis continues to deepen, the Syrian government announced additional reductions of gasoline and diesel subsidies for the second time this month. Observers see that Damascus “is bitterly disappointed and quietly suffering because of its allies’ failure to intervene to rescue it from its latest crisis.” Syrians are questioning Russia and Iran as massive queues overwhelm government-subsidized bakeries amid the acute grain shortage.

On Monday, the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection issued a sudden decree raising the price of a liter of industrial and commercial gas to 650 Syrian pounds after being priced at 296 pounds. It also raised the price of a liter of Octane 95 gasoline to 1,050 pounds, after having had already raised the price from 450 to 850 pounds earlier this month.

With its decision, the ministry confirmed that the price of gas for heating, 180 pounds per liter, has not been changed. The same applies to other sectors, like transportation, agriculture and the public sector. It also maintained the price (135 Pounds per liter) at which gas is sold to bakeries that distribute bread rations.

The ministry justified its decision to raise the price at which gas is sold to manufacturers and businesses with the high cost of supplying petroleum derivatives in light of the “unjust blockade” imposed by the American administration on the Syrian people, adding that the measure will help to curb smuggling.

Car owners told Asharq Al-Awsat that they still spend hours, sometimes a whole day, waiting to buy 30 liters of gas at the subsidized price of 250 pounds, while others resort to the black market and buy it at astronomical prices.

Meanwhile, the government has kept quiet about the reasons for the long queues at bakeries and puts the gasoline shortage down to maintenance work, the completion of which has been announced several times this year, at the Baniyas refinery.

But economists have been asking: what are our allies, Russia and Iran, doing about what is going in Syria? Why haven’t they intervened? Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, one economist asked: “Is a major power like Russia incapable of supplying an oil tanker or a ship loaded with grain?”

He added: “The government is silent! Is it a silence about being let down by our allies?”

In a joint press conference on September 7, during Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said: “The future of relations with Russia is promising, and it has positive indications for the county’s economic and political future.”

“We are optimistic that the general economic situation will improve in the coming months,” he said.

However, a month and a half later, and after a government delegation recently visited Moscow, the economic situation has yet to improve in areas under the regime’s control; indeed, it has become worse.

The crisis has been intensifying over the past month, and living conditions have become hellishly dire. Amid the grain shortage, dozens of bakeries in Damascus and its periphery shut their doors, while the large state-run bakeries in the capital have been unable to supply the quota that it had promised.

After the expected waiting time at these bakeries exceeded five hours, the price of a bundle of bread (seven loaves) surged in the black market, first going from 200 pounds to 500 before reaching 1,000 pounds on Tuesday. Subsidized bread is sold for 50 pounds. As for gas for heating, local sources claim only 10 percent of families on the ration lists have received their share.