DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Sarcastically, Abir smiled when asked about her new wishes on the New Year. “What could we wish, all our wishes are that the new year not be worse than the previous ones.”
Abir Lutfi, at 20s, from the Damascus neighborhood of Dwel’a adds, “Not a single wish or any aspirations for the new year.”
In a country engulfed by dire economic and living conditions where unemployment rates are on the rise and there is no food security, responses of all interviewed Syrians living in Damascus bear no difference when asked about the new year. On previous occasions, all their wishes fell to the ground.
Muhammad Melhem, from Jaramana neighborhood, recaps his wishes of the new year saying, “I have no wishes, electricity is an example, there is neither beam nor light.”
The young man who works in a pie shop says “Owing to repeated crises we have been turned reptiles,” he said using a Syrian idiom that means people have been adapted to such hard living conditions.
Areas held by the Syrian government force are stricken by many crises such as lack of diesel, bread and the acute rationing of electricity. Recently, an unprecedented fall in the Syrian pound has brought every aspect of life in the country to a stall.
Since January 2022, economic and living conditions in the country rose to the surface. However, it was in recent months that prices have skyrocketed and diesel no longer was seen in stations. As a result to the severe fuel shortages, the government issued a decision to close all agencies and institutions. This begins on December 25 up to January 1, 2023.
The situation of electricity is damaged beyond repair. On average, there is a 20-hour rationing that makes the Syrian capital live in darkness.
In January 2022, a dollar was traded on the black market at 3.600 Syrian pounds. Days ago that value stood at 6.000 Syrian pounds with a 60% rise compared to last year and strikingly 700% with 2011.
Amid such dark a reality, Omar al-Najjar, from Dwel’a, believes there is no breakthrough seem to introduce itself in 2023.
Sarcastically, Omar says, “It [2022] has been full of issuances by the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection all stipulating rising items’ prices. Not a single one issued entailing a fall in the price of a single item.”
He continued, “All promises made by the government to improve electricity and economic situation were mere slogans. What we are enduring right now is more calamitous than the days of the war.”
The International Rescue Committee classified Syria in the list of countries at risk of deteriorating humanitarian crises in 2023.
Ranim al-Najjar, Omar’s wife, feels sorry for the situation of “Syrians who used to celebrate the New Year optimistically prior to the war. However, today the vast majority of Syrian are pessimistic while others do not have anything to say on the New Year.”
For her part, she wants no more than securing her every day needs as in other countries. “We no longer want absolute welfare, rather a simple everyday life where needs are available without much preoccupation with future.”
Ibrahim Skaf, from the Mezzeh neighborhood, says there is no room for aspiring dreams and wishes in his country. His own wish is that electricity be provided and to earn a living “which are naturally rights” as he put it.