We’re craving tomatoes and onions, we can’t afford them anymore.”Ġ2:01 Soundbite 4, Khalil: “I have bags of rice that I bought for 1200 SYP, but now cost 3000. We have one room and a bathroom and we are paying 50,000 SYP”Ġ1:35 Soundbite 2, Khalil: “Sometimes, my wife and I go to the vegetable market to buy supplies we buy sugar, fat, oil, canned food and then we re-sell them.”Ġ1:51 Soundbite 3, Khalil: “Sometimes we end up using some of the products we intend to sell for ourselves we need to eat. My wife has cancer, my son has been sick for four years and is in hospital, and I’m an amputee with damaged eye sight. Sarah Alzawqari, ICRC Middle East spokesperson, +961 3138 353, Hetherington, ICRC Middle East spokesperson, +41, the ICRC on /icrc and /icrcĠ2:03 Babr Amr Collective Kitchen, supported by ICRC and SARC, Homs, June 2020Ġ0:46 Khalil Al falah setting up his shop selling goods he was able to buy with the support from ICRC and SARC, Damascus, June 2020Ġ1:10 Soundbite 1, Khalil: “I’m living in a rented house, we moved here for medical reasons. It acts in response to emergencies and at the same time promotes respect for international humanitarian law and its implementation in national law. Market price monitoring was carried out in March and April.Ģ.The International Committee of the Red Cross is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence. In May 2020, ICRC’s Economic Security Unit in Syria interviewed 125 households that had been previously supported by the ICRC, representing 875 people, about the economic impact of COVID-19.Today, almost every second person in Syria can’t access or afford enough food in a country that was a self-sufficient, regional exporter of food prior to the conflict. More than nine million Syrians are now considered food insecure, an increase of 1.4 million people (20%) in the past year, raising fears of hunger and undernourishment. Sometimes we manage to buy half a kilo of tomatoes then me and Um Mohammed take a tomato each, crush it, and put it on bread with salt and eat it, said Khalil Al Falah, a 65-yearold amputee who benefited from ICRC’s micro-economic initiative We’re craving tomatoes and onions butwe can’t afford them anymore. “We used to buy things at a cheap price,now the prices are over the top.
People there and elsewhere told the ICRC of the stress and anxiety of not being able to provide for their families as before. There are huge variations across governorates for many products, with milk and dairy products reportedly increasing by almost 120% in rural Damascus, for example, roughly ten times as much as in other parts of the country. Imported goods like rice and sugar doubled or tripled in price, with a litre of vegetable oil now costing more than the average daily wage of a day labourer. As families struggle to put food on the table, the price of bread doubled across the country and bakeries have been working overtime to meet the increase in demand.
Since March, food prices have soared by 38% nationally.
For those who are still earning, the plunging Syrian pound and increased prices means that many basic goods are unaffordable anyway. And people are not ordering the same amount as before, they’re only buying basic things they’re not buying sweets and food like before,” said Farida, a widow and a mother of 3 who opened a shop through an ICRC micro-initiative project.ħ0% of respondents reported having no savings to support themselves, with the remaining 30% having enough savings to tide them over for one month at the most. I used to have about fifty customers a month, now I only have fifteen. “Now, due to the economic situation I have less customers. Day labourers and business owners reported the biggest impact. When ICRC interviewed 125 families across Syria recently, 89% of respondents said their livelihood was negatively impacted in recent months, reporting job loss or a reduction in revenue and alternative sources of income. Syrians’ food security and livelihoods have been particularly affected, in a country where 80% of the population already live below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day. A dramatically deteriorating economic situation, a simmering COVID-19 crisis, the direct or indirect effect of sanctions and ongoing fighting in parts of the country are pushing millions of people in Syria towards deeper poverty and hunger as the tenth anniversary of the conflict approaches.
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