Bread Crisis hits Homs again, SP. 300 for one kilo

Reporting by Maher Radhwan; Translation by Yusra Ahmed

HOMS (Zaman AL Wasl)- Bread crisis is spreading in Homs, it began in Talbiseh, to spread to Rastan, Zafarana and Holeh. Almost 200 thousand people in Homs’s Northern and Western North countryside suffer from lack of bread, and if found, the price hit SP.300 per a kilo, almost 10 fold its prices in pro-regime areas.

People of the embattled town of Holeh, 35 km away from Homs, in the Western North countryside, told Zaman al-Wasl that crisis started suddenly in their town days after Rastan and Talbiseh’s crisis, when suddenly flour disappeared from shops to be sold double its previous price the following day, reaching to 10 thousand for a bag.

Ahmad al-Saed, from Tal-zahab told Zaman al-Wasl that only a week ago, they used to buy bread for SP.150 from the local council, but now it is sold for SP. 200 in private bakeries, after waiting for 3 hours at least. Al-Saed holds the local council in his area responsibility for the bread crisis, because they did not take enough procedures like storing stand-by amounts of flour enough to cover people’s need for a month at least. “You need to pay SP.300 for a kilo, it you want to buy bread from a shop”, Ahmad adds.

From his side, “A.KH”, a member in Tal-zahab’s local council, defended the council saying to Zaman al-Wasl: “we tried to buy flour from Homs’s Northern Countryside, but we found out that it was expired, besides that, we have limited budget allocated to buy flour and does not exceed two million Syrian pounds”.

From his side, “A.KH” held the Interim Government responsibility for the bread crisis in Homs’s Northern Countryside, and revealed that his under-siege area has not received any relief since the beginning of 2014.

Many people who have some flour, started making bread at home, using the old way of kneading and baking on firewood. However, even this methods has its drawbacks, as only less than a fifth of women know how to knead or bake these days, beside providing flour and firewood and other stuff, which could cost around SP.150, not to mention the bad effects of fume and other residuals result of burning wood and plastic materials.

Bread crisis in not the only and last in Syria, we could witness Fuel crisis in winter, and then food, vegetables and medicine, but bread shortage can be seen as the most important and sensitive crisis in Syria.