“The rich are at war and the poor are fighting against it,” said a Syrian who has been suffering due to the war in Syria for nine years, especially at hands of the massive monetary inflation.
The Syrian Pound fell to a record level. At the beginning of June, money changers on the black market asked 3000 Lira for one dollar. However, the official price remained at 700 Lira, which caused retailers to close their stores in many cities. At the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, a dollar was said to have cost 47 lira.
According to the World Food Program, inflation has increased food prices by 133 percent since May 2019. As a result, living conditions have deteriorated significantly. The United Nations says that 80 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line and that more than nine million people are hungry. Before the Syria conference in Brussels, the UN program “urgently asked for funds to save the lives of Syrians.”
A spokeswoman for the World Food Program, Jessica Lawson, told the French press that any further loss in value of the lira would mean an increase in the prices of the main imported foods such as rice, pasta and lentils.
The Syrian regime claims that international sanctions, the most recent of which is the Caesar Act, are the cause of widespread problems for the population. Although the content of this new sanction adopted by the United States is directed against the Syrian regime, the Syrians fear that the sanctions will further worsen their living conditions. It is getting harder to make a living every day in a country that is already suffering from economic collapse, unemployment and the poverty caused by war. Even people employed by the government have a maximum salary of $40 a month.
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Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL; A. A, 07.07.2020
