TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press) – Abdulkarim Ayo, a resident of Tel Tamr, north of Hasakah, northeastern Syria, could not find sugar in food stores within the town’s market.
Ayo, who traveled more than 15 kilometers from his village al-Kabir to get to Tel Tamr town, said he toured all the shops to get several kilograms of sugar, but all in vain.
These days, northeast Syria suffers from a lack of food and basic foodstuffs and prices hikes of available goods due to various factors, most notably monopoly, the closure of crossings, drought and lack of fuel, according to local residents and merchants.
Local residents accuse the traders of monopolizing the materials amid the difficult economic conditions, and in light of the closure of Semalka border crossing with the Kurdistan region of Iraq (KRG) last month, and the continued tightening of the Syrian government checkpoints on shipments coming from areas under its control.
They pointed out that food prices have risen in recent days, despite the relative stability of the currency exchange rate.
The local population depends on the agricultural crops, which were bad last year due to drought, which in turn affected the income from raising livestock due to the loss of fodder and the low prices of livestock.
Price hike
“Everything in the market is expensive, and we can no longer buy all our families’ needs, most of the food supplies are available, but their prices are high,” Ayo said.
The man depends for his family’s livelihood, as most of the region’s residents, on livestock farming and agriculture, which incurred losses in the last year.
The decline in Ayo’s income put him in front of challenges to secure the necessities of life for his family’s members.
Sellers are now accused of hiding old merchandise in their stores while waiting for higher prices.
Abdulkarim Haydar, the owner of a food store, gained two tons of sugar from the Newroz Consumer Company, which distributed equal quantity to the shops few days ago, but it soon finished due to the increased demand for it.
Since last month, the demand for foodstuffs, most notably sugar, has increased, while the high prices of some items have reduced the demand for them, according to sellers in Tel Tamr.
Haydar pointed that the shipments arriving from the government-held areas through the city of Manbij have become very high.
The problem remained in the market despite the intensification of the Supply Committee’s patrols in the town with the aim of controlling the markets.
Store owners in Tel Tamr believe that the shortage of sugar has caused anxiety among the residents, and that the markets will not be satisfied unless there are more than usual quantities of sugar in the market.
Turkish bombardment effect
The frequent Turkish shelling of Tel Tamr area, north of Hasakah, has a great effect on the general situation in the area, especially the living and agricultural conditions.
As a result of the Turkish attacks and threats as well as the low allocated budget, service projects that was scheduled for the current year in Tel Tamr, north of Hasakah, have not been implemented, the co-chair of the Tel Tamr People’s Municipality, Ahmad Haydar, said in December 2021.
Two years ago, the al-Ya’rubiyah/Tel Kocher crossing was closed to UN humanitarian access to north and east Syria due to the veto of Russia and China, which exacerbated the challenges facing the region, according to civil organizations.
Turkey gave up a lot of political deals for the sake of closing the al-Ya’rubiyah crossing and limiting the aid access through only its territory in order to exacerbate political pressure on the region, Assistant Secretary-General of the Future Syria Party, Ahmad Sultan, said in early December last year.