Home gas cylinder crisis worsens in regime-controlled provinces and reaches the capital “Damascus”

Syria’s regime-controlled provinces are witnessing an extreme home gas cylinder crisis, which is renewed every year because the citizens use them for heating due to the shortage of gasoline, and according to sources of the Syrian Observatory, queues of citizens are standing in front of the distribution centers in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, and Homs provinces, waiting to get a gas cylinder, activists of the Syrian Observatory monitored tens of citizens carrying empty cylinders searching for the cars which sell them.

Regime’s government announced a distribution method called the Smart Card, and delivering the allocations through the supervision of city councils and neighborhood committees, but the citizens complain that the allocations are so little and they do not meet their needs, also this method opens the doors of corruption and spoilers, and the spread of selling in prices of the black market, while the crisis has created a new profession for several unemployed people who are exploiting the legal loopholes and the need of the citizens, where in Aleppo city, several young men, women, and elderly people found a new career, which is taking a place in the gas queues and selling their place for those who want to save time and can’t wait.

And the gas distribution schedule for the residential neighborhoods -which is published by the Directorate of Fuel at night- became the interest point of them and of those looking for the lost domestic cylinder gas, also the home gas crisis has moved to Hama Province, then to Latakia, Homs, all the way to Rif Dimashq and the capital, which is witnessing a real crisis worsening day by day, and the regime is still unable to overcome them at a time when the country is witnessing a severe shortage of other fuels.

Also Syria’s provinces that are under regime’s control are witnessing a decline in the standard of living and the spread of poverty, in the light of limited employment opportunities and the militias’ control of the lives of citizens.