Syria’s Idlib witnesses livelihood crisis as Turkish lira depreciates
IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – People in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham HTS-controlled areas suffer from unprecedented inflation caused by using Turkish Lira that has devaluated to the lowest this month.
Lira Today website posted that one USD dollar equals approximately 9,60 Turkish liras. While one Turkish lira equals 373 SYP.
On Friday, the Idlib-based Salvation Government, the civil wing of the HTS, decided to underweight 25% of one bundle of bread with preserving the old price 2,5 Turkish lira.
The decision caused a wave of anger and discontent among the people who said the government toys with their daily livelihood.
Moreover, the people called for mass protests across Idlib against the Salvation Government claiming that their decisions are ‘unfair’, local sources said.
In turn, the Salvation government justified its decision to the fall of the Turkish lira because it imports flour from Turkey with USD and that the supply control is semi-absent.
On the other hand, Watad Petroleum, a petrol company run by HTS, hiked the prices of all fuel in northwest Syria for the sixth time in a month.
Watad Petroleum is the only company that imports fuels to Idlib, thus authorizing it to monopoly the fuels.
On October 19, Watad Petroleum had underweighted a household gas cylinder from 24 kilos to 22 following decreasing its price but it raised its price once again from 109 to 114 Turkish lira, approximately 42,000 SYP.
HTS takes a portion of the traders’ profits in Idlib and this explain the hikes in prices of most of the food and livelihood stuff, well-informed sources told North Press.
The sources stated that the Salvation Government is facilitating the traders’ work in order to make huge profits ignoring the dire economic and livelihood conditions the people live.
On October 15, dozens of people took to the streets protesting the increase of prices of staple food and fuels in Idlib city. They rose signs featuring phrases demanding the Salvation Government to stop the authoritarian policy and sharing the people’s living’.