DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Protesters in front of a bakery in the countryside of Jableh, south of Latakia, on the Syrian coast, set fires and raised their voices demanding the abolition of the “bread rationing” mechanism, after they were unable to obtain their allocations.
A protester in the village of Derin in the countryside of Jableh, told North Press that the protest started after some residents were unable to obtain their allocations of bread yesterday, “although it is followed by a day off, which means that they will remain without bread throughout two days.”
“Some of the crowd set fire in the place to draw attention to their problem, and others, with loud voices, demanded the government to cancel the system of bread rationing,” he added.
Since the beginning of the year, the Syrian government has issued a series of decisions regarding the mechanism of distributing bread, raising its prices and rationing it, amid the aggravation of the shortage in the quantities produced and the increasing complaints of residents in government-controlled areas.
On July 19, the Syrian government started to implement the bread rationing through the smart card in the governorates of Hama, Tartous and Latakia.
The mechanism stipulates regulating the number of loaves of bread and assigning a specific authorized person for each group, which prompts the owner of the assigned bakery to destroy any allocations left due to the absence of their owners at the time of distribution, despite the shortage of quantities and the demand of others for their needs.
The protestor stated that both the area and district managers in Jableh arrived in the gathering place, “and spoke to the angry residents about their understanding of their feelings of anger, and allowed the owner of the bakery to distribute the extra bread to them.”
Another source in the village of Derin said that he knows, despite his absence during the protest, that the village includes “families whose food is limited to only bread, and there are those who are unable to buy bread because of the extreme poverty that people have reached.”
The news of the demonstration on personal accounts and local Facebook pages received a lot of supportive reactions.
Yesterday morning, the Syrian government Minister of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection, Omar Salem, canceled the decision to rationing bread, while maintaining the number of (authorized) sales points and increasing the allocations of bread to the population with immediate implementation.
On his personal account on the Facebook page, Salem stated that “a citizen can buy his allocations from any center or authorized person.”
He considered that the decision to rationing the bread “is superstition that led to the confusion of the people in the governorates in which it was applied.”
But the minister canceled the decision and said that the rationing is still in place.
He justified the matter with the phrase: “out of respect for the constitution, which forbids making decisions before taking an oath.”