DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – Ismail Deeb, a high school student from the Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus, tries to make good use of the daytime hours. At night, his house will likely remain dark as a result of the city-wide electricity rationing.
Deeb begins studying when the first sunrays light up his room and does not put down his books, except for a short break, until 4 pm, when the sun goes down.
On January 9, an official at the Ministry of Electricity of the Syrian government declared that a slight growth in fuel imports would have no noticeable impact on electricity hours.
In his statement to the pro-government al-Watan newspaper, the official attributed this to the high demand for electricity during the winter months and to the fact that most generators are gas-powered.
Government-held areas have endured a severe economic crisis for the past two months, as the value of the Syrian pound (SYP) has plummeted and a fuel shortage has led to significant electricity shut-offs.
Residents in Syrian government-controlled areas today are without electricity for 18 to 22 hours each day.
Ghalia al-Amin, 30, a resident of the al-Douelaa neighborhood, helps her son, who attends primary school, to “organize his studying time for exams around the precious hours of electricity they receive in the afternoon.”
At dawn, when the electricity comes back, she wakes her son so that he may revise his lessons before exams.
Meanwhile, Shahed al-Muhammad, a fourth-year student at Damascus University’s Civil Engineering College, looks for quiet and low-cost public places to sit in and prepare for her upcoming exams.
The student, a resident of Jaramana neighborhood, says her classes require a lot of study time, which is near impossible given the miserable state of the electricity provision in the city.
Cut-off hours exceed hours electricity at a rate of five to one, she says.
“Some days, there are no specific electricity hours, as if it depends on the mood of the person in charge of the electricity,” she jokes.
Al-Muhammad is trying to cope with the situation as best as she can, continuing to try and find temporary solutions to the current crisis that will allow her to finish her studies.
Mounir al-Khalil, a philosophy student at the University of Damascus, studies by the light of a small battery-fed LED lamp. When the batteries fail him, he resorts to candlelight.
He is unable to make use of the daylight hours, as he spends his morning working at a clothes shop in order to pay his tuition fees and support his family, which has also been hit hard by the ongoing economic crisis.