Al-Darbasiyyah | State-subsidized flour shortage, corruption and looting bread bakeries’ flour allocations worsen chronic bread crisis

Bread crisis in Al-Darbasiyyah city in Al-Hasakah countryside is deteriorating a day after another, although there are three automated bread bakeries and nearly 20 other stone bread bakeries which produce thousands of bread packs every day.

 

According to SOHR sources, there are several factors behind the worsening bread crisis, including the following:

 

• Suspension of providing state-subsidized high quality bread to the city.

 

• Flour shortage, as the Syrian regime does not provide flour to the three automated bread bakeries.

 

• The increasing price of bread baked in the stone bread bakeries, which many of residents relied on.

 

• Administrative corruption.

 

• Looting of bread bakeries’ allocations of flour and yeast.

 

• The increasing population of the city, as several people has been displaced from Ras Al-Ain and Abu Rasin to Al-Darbasiyyah.

 

It is worth noting that chronic crises, bread and fuel shortage in particular, still hit the Syrian regime’s controlled areas, further burdening the Syrians who have to wait for hours in front of bread bakeries to get their bread allocations. In this context, Observatory activists had monitored considerable congestion in front of “Al-Ba’th” automated bread bakery in regime-controlled areas in Al-Qamishli city in Al-Hasakah countryside, amid growing discontent among the people awaiting there.