Amid chronic living crises | Government’s decision to increase fuel prices ignites public anger in regime-controlled areas

Reliable SOHR sources have reported growing public anger in regime-controlled areas in all Syrian provinces following a decision issued by the regime’s Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection to increase fuel prices. According to the new decision, the new prices has been set as follows:

 

• State subsidised premium petrol (octan 90) which is distributed via smart cards: from 1,100 SYP to 2,500 SYP per litre.

 

• Unsubsidised premium petrol (octan 90): from 3,500 SYP to 4,000 SYP per litre.

 

• Unsubsidised petrol (octan 95): from 4,000 SYP to 4,500 SYP per litre.

 

The ministry has declared that the rise of prices aims at easing off the heavy losses in oil budget and avoiding the unavailability of fuel.

 

In this context, transport crisis has been worsened further across regime-controlled areas, along with growing congestion and acute lack of means of transportation because of the latest decision; this, in turn, has ignited public anger among civilians in regime-controlled areas, including the pro-regime individuals. The low salaries which are given to employees in regime-controlled areas do not meet the successive increase in fuel prices; let alone the prohibitively high prices of all products. The chronic crisis in regime-controlled areas included the frequent power cuts as well in light of the extreme high temperatures.

 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has been all along warning against the unwelcome repercussions of the crippling chronic crises and security chaos in regime-controlled areas and elsewhere in Syria, with only the Syrian regime to blame for the disastrous situation Syria is in right now. We, at the Syrian Observatory, call upon all international actors not to abandon their responsibility and obligations towards the people of Syria and urge them to find a lasting solution to the tragedy of millions of Syrians and bring Al-Assad, his affiliates and all those responsible for violations and those who aided and abetted the killing of Syrian people to justice.

 

In June, , regime-controlled areas was strongly hit with acute shortage of fuel; this, in turn, affected the transportation service and other services badly. Moreover, the rate of electricity rationing rose in all Syrian provinces, especially with the current high temperature. The current transport and energy crises affected regime-controlled areas across Syria, however, these crises were concentrated in Damascus, Rif Dimashq and Latakia.

 

Traffic in the capital, Damascus, and Rif Dimashq was paralysed almost completely, especially since the Damascus Provincial Council issued a decision to cut Damascus’ diesel allocations to 30 %, suspend the subsidised fuel allocations for public buses and reduce the subsidised fuel distributions of internal transport to one day only. All these factors negatively affected the transportation sector in Damascus. Although the capital alone needs more than 500 buses, only 130 buses were available to the private sector, while the number of buses available to the public sector was reduced from 100 to 60. The number of buses was reduced under the pretext of “saving and rationing fuel and diesel.”