As the holy month of Ramadan comes | Living crises deepen civilians’ suffering in regime-held areas, as bread queues continue

Living crises continue to hit the regime-held areas, and with the advent of the holy month of Ramadan, the suffering of Syrians who used to buy Ramadan supplies exacerbates, and with the astronomical rise in commodity prices and the lack of jobs, the people are unable to buy their daily needs, as the situation worsens.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has monitored increasing and growing queues of people outside bread bakeries across the regime-held areas, as well as the ongoing living crises, including fuel crisis, the power outages for long hours, as well as the water cut ff almost completely to some cities and neighbourhoods.

Yesterday, social media users shared a video showing a half-naked girl on a street in Aleppo, which is under the control of the Syrian regime. The video showed the girl standing in front of a shop. According to local sources, the girl was unaware of what she was doing because of the tragic living conditions. Several passers-by have witnessed the incident, where a lady spoke in the video saying: “send the video to the government to let them see that people can’t take this situation anymore”, referring to the dire situations that civilians are going through in the regime-held areas in different provinces.

This comes in light of the collapse of the economy and extreme poverty in all regions along with endless crises, including fuel, bread and many more, while the regime government failed to find solutions to these crises, especially with the scarcity of jobs and low wages.

On April 7, SOHR sources said that the fuel crisis continued in all areas under the control of the Syrian regime, where the consequences of this severe crisis are seen in all aspects and sectors of life in the regime-held areas, while the ultimate losers are the Syrian civilians. The impacts included water outages, public transport disruption, power outages for more than 20 hours a day, employees can’t go to their work, ambulances were stopped, and services were suspended by up to 90%, amid government silence, justifying this by stating that the crisis is caused by “the theft of Syrian oil by SDF and American forces.”

Meanwhile, SOHR activists have monitored water outages throughout the regime-held areas for long periods, and lack of water in other areas as there is no fuel to operate water plants, forcing residents to buy water from mobile tanks, while people in rural areas extract water from wells through primitive ways.

As for fuel crisis, the long queues of cars and vehicles at gas stations continue despite the new mechanism pursued by the regime authorities, in addition to the overcrowded bus stops due to lack of public transport. Many employees and workers stopped going to their work because of the great difficulty in finding a public transport, and high fees of private transport.

Moreover, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has monitored long queues of people outside bread bakeries, where queues at some bread bakeries in the regime-held areas reaches 4 km long.

Reliable sources have reported that the prices of medicine in regime-held areas, have noticeably increased, along with the lack of many kinds of medicine in pharmacies, including medication for cardiovascular disease, kidney diseases, hypertension, diabetes and some of children’s medicines.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) renews its calls for international organizations to help civilians in the Syrian regime-held areas, as not everyone can flee or take refuge. Where the situation has become unbearable and the conditions that SOHR monitors and tracks there are inhuman.