A crippling fuel shortage piles extreme hardship on war-weary Syrians

A young Syrian worker sells heaters as winter approaches in Raqqa, scene of some of the worst fighting of the conflict. (AFP)
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Updated 25 December 2022
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A crippling fuel shortage piles extreme hardship on war-weary Syrians

  • Latest crisis, which began to bite in early December, has paralyzed life in regime-controlled areas 
  • Experts say sanctions have impoverished the population while failing to bring Syria closer to peace

LONDON: “Syria is dead, desperate for someone to pull the plug.” This is how Nour, a 26-year-old nutritionist from Homs, summed up the situation in her home country, more than a decade on from the outbreak of a civil war and amid a worsening economic crisis.

A shortage of fuel, which began to bite harder with the onset of winter, has paralyzed life in regime-controlled areas of Syria, including the capital Damascus, forcing authorities to suspend or reduce many essential public services.

On Dec. 5, the government almost doubled the price of fuel overnight. Daily power outages now last up to 22 hours on average, even in the capital’s upmarket neighborhoods. Many residents cannot afford to heat their homes as winter temperatures plunge.




Syrians queue to fill their tanks amid a fuel crisis that has sent living standards plummeting. (AFP)

Although the fighting between the government and rebel factions has subsided in recent years, Syria remains the site of one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises, with millions of civilians still displaced, infrastructure in ruins, and much of the population living below the poverty line.

Syria’s isolation has deepened with the imposition in 2020 of the toughest US sanctions ever targeting the regime of President Bashar Assad.

“The current fuel crisis in government-controlled areas is not a novel aspect of the conflict economy in Syria,” Mohammad Al-Asadi, a Germany-based research economist at the Syrian Center for Policy Research, told Arab News.

The SCPR has tracked several major fuel shortages since 2020, but, according to Al-Asadi, “the current shortage is the most economically and socially impactful during the last couple of years.”

Syria’s Ministry of Internal Trade recently announced plans to sell industrial and commercial diesel at 5,400 Syrian pounds a liter — up from 2,500 Syrian pounds in late November — while petrol will be sold at 4,900 Syrian pounds a liter.

The price of fuel distributed through the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company will remain at 2,500 Syrian pounds per liter.

The pent-up demand for fuel has had an adverse impact on the value of the Syrian pound, which hit a new record low on Dec. 10.

The dollar exchange rate on the black market surpassed 6,000 Syrian pounds for the first time, while the central bank’s rate stood at 3,015 Syrian pounds. In 2011, when the civil war began, the official rate was 47 Syrian pounds.

Reports say diesel and petrol shortages have resulted in severe overcrowding at bus terminals in both Damascus and outlying areas, as the government cut fuel allocations for minibus services — the cheapest mode of transport available to Syrians.

The situation is similar in Homs, geographically the largest governorate of Syria.

“After 1pm, minibuses stop operating, and we take any vehicle we find on the road to commute home,” said Nour. “Passengers sometimes get into fist fights over seats on minibuses and shared taxis.”

Khaled, a 21-year-old accounting student who gave only his first name, earns about 50,000 Syrian pounds a month from waitering. A shared-taxi trip from Zabadani, Rif Dimashq, to the Mezzeh highway in Damascus — a distance of just 48 km — cost him 6,800 Syrian pounds earlier this month.

By contrast, Khaled told Arab News: “I paid 3,300 for the same journey in mid-November.”

In practical terms, high inflation has meant a cost-of-living crisis, with prices of goods increasing across the board but real wages remaining stagnant.

“A computer programmer can make about 800,000 pounds a month in the private sector, but this is barely enough for rent, basic goods and transport costs,” a Damascus-based journalist, who asked not to be identified, told Arab News.

In December 2021, the minimum state salary was around 93,000 Syrian pounds, according to Shaam Times, a government-affiliated news website.

SCPR researcher Al-Asadi expects the national fuel shortage “to last as long as the multi-level fragmentation in the country lasts” — a state of affairs he says authorities are unlikely to address.




A Syrian man fills a container as he sells diesel beside a road amid a fuel crisis in northeastern Syria. (AFP)

“None of the local political powers in Syria has made real efforts to overcome deep socioeconomic challenges facing the country, including energy and fuel shortages,” he told Arab News.

“After 12 years of conflict, most efforts are still dedicated to directing the remaining financial, physical, and human resources to serve activities related to the war economy at the expense of restoring the normal economic cycle based on production.

“Hence, investments in alternative energy solutions have received little interest during the last decade.”

Oil revenues accounted for between 5 and 7 percent of Syria’s gross domestic product prior to the civil war. Total reserves are estimated at 2.5 billion barrels, with at least 75 percent of these reserves in the fields surrounding Deir ez-Zor, outside the regime’s sphere of control.  

The Assad regime has repeatedly accused US forces deployed in the Kurdish-majority northeast of the country of “looting” Syrian oil, thereby contributing to the fuel shortage.

On Dec. 1, the Syrian state news agency SANA claimed that a convoy of 54 tankers, “loaded with plundered oil,” was spotted in Al-Yaarubiyah, in Hasakah province, traveling through the Al-Mahmudiyah border crossing into Iraq.

Northeast Syria has been largely self ruled since regime forces withdrew from the area in 2011 to fend off the uprising elsewhere in the country. 

In the summer of 2014, Daesh militants exploited this power vacuum, seizing control of several major towns, including Raqqa, and many of the region’s lucrative oilfields.




“Without an inclusive political arrangement, conclusive solutions for such shortages remain far away,” said Mohammad Al-Asadi, Research economist at the Syrian Center for Policy Research. (Supplied)

A coalition of Arab and Kurdish militias, later dubbed the Syrian Democratic Forces, soon dislodged the extremist group with US military support, taking charge of the oilfields.

The Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES), which assumed control of these territories, began selling this oil to neighboring countries and to the Assad regime.

In 2019, President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing US forces from northeast Syria but leaving a small contingent to secure the oil. 

In the same month, it was announced that US troops would be deployed to Deir ez-Zor to help the SDF retain control of oil fields from Daesh.

Often unable to secure enough fuel supply from its Iranian allies, the Assad government has pressured the AANES to provide more fuel to regime-held areas by withholding essential supplies like food, medicine, and building materials. 

In a 2021 report, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said that while the US administration has denied looting Syrian oil, it has implemented a “morally and legally dubious plan,” which involved supporting its Kurdish allies by keeping the oil “out of the hands of the Assad regime” and “helping to refine and sell it.”

The general consensus of Syria analysts is that the modest US involvement is not the primary cause of the current fuel crisis.

“Although sanctions and oil looting from the oil-rich eastern areas to the neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan region contribute to deepening the fuel crisis in the country, these are not the most important factors,” Al-Asadi told Arab News.

“The key drivers for the renewed fuel crisis — and all similar socioeconomic challenges — cannot be disconnected from the nature of the political economy that has prevailed in the country during the last decade, particularly aspects related to political fragmentation, subordination to foreign political actors, and dominating major resources and investment opportunities by allies.”

To make matters worse, aid workers say the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February this year pushed the humanitarian crisis in Syria to the back burner.

After spending about two weeks in Syria in November, Alena Douhan, the UN special rapporteur on human rights, claimed that the current US, EU and UK sanctions “may amount to crimes against humanity.”




A Syrian man sells fuel at a makeshift roadside stall outside Raqqa. (AFP)

Douhan called for the immediate lifting of the sanctions as they “harm human rights and prevent any efforts for early recovery.”

Even some critics of the Assad regime say economic sanctions have done little to bring Syria’s warring parties closer to a political solution, all the while further impoverishing the population.

“The Assad regime is not going anywhere, so many observers increasingly question the utility of sanctions that harm not only the regime, but the Syrian people as well,” David Romano, professor of Middle East politics at Missouri State University, told Arab News.

“While there are provisions for things like export waivers for items of humanitarian importance for the Syrian people, in practice, the American and European sanctions on Syria have seriously harmed an already crippled economy — country wide,” he said.

On Dec. 5, residents of Suwayda in Syria’s southwest took to the streets to protest against falling standards of living. The demonstration quickly escalated into clashes with local security forces, leaving two people dead and eight injured.

“Ordinary people’s suffering is expected to increase,” said Al-Asadi. “(Particularly) workers relying primarily on transportation to secure their livelihoods, such as farmers, taxi and microbus drivers, and workers in the delivery sector.”

Owing to rising transportation costs for many commonly traded goods and services, he expects the current fuel shortages “to last until mid-January 2023 at least,” inflationary pressures to increase, and many businesses “to face major interruptions. Although some oil tankers are expected to reach Syria during the coming few weeks, the amounts supplied may not be sufficient to overcome the crisis.”

Instead of finding solutions to the fuel crisis, the government is shifting “the burden of the conflict to households,” Al-Asadi told Arab News, adding that “without an inclusive political arrangement, conclusive solutions for such shortages remain far away.”


In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

Updated 4 sec ago
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In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

  • Despite HTS’s reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life

DAMASCUS: In Damascus’s Ummayad Square, hundreds gathered Thursday, demanding a democratic state that includes women in public life, marking the first such demonstration since Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Women and men, young and old, chanted slogans including “No to religious rule,” “God is for religion and the homeland is for all,” and “We want a democracy, not a religious state.”
“We are here in peaceful action to safeguard the gains of the revolution that has let us stand here today in complete freedom,” said Ayham Hamsho, 48, a prosthetic limb maker in the country torn by more than 13 years of war.
“For more than 50 years, we have been under tyrannical rule that has blocked party and political activity in the country,” he told AFP.
“Today we are trying to organize our affairs” in order to achieve “a secular, civil, democratic state” that is decided at the ballot box, he added.
For days, Syrians celebrated in Ummayad Square after rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took the capital on December 8 and toppled Assad after a lightning offensive.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a “terrorist” organization by several Western governments, HTS has sought to moderate its rhetoric by assuring protection for the country’s many religious and ethnic minorities.
It has appointed a transitional leadership to run the country until March 1.
Despite the reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life.
On Thursday, some protesters held signs reading simply the word “secular,” while one man held a sign with the scales of justice hanging equally and the words “men” and “women” written below.
People also chanted “the Syrian people are one,” rejecting divisions among the multi-confessional and multi-ethnic country.
A few armed HTS fighters, some of them masked, roamed around at the demonstration.
One told the crowd, “the great Syrian revolution was victorious through armed force,” before protesters cut him off, chanting, “Down with military rule.”
One young man wearing keffiyeh scarf and dark glasses held a hand-written sign saying, “No free nation without free women,” while another demonstrator’s placard read “Equality between women and men is a legitimate Islamic and international right.”
Actress Raghda Khateb, standing with friends among the crowd, said “Syrian women have been a constant partner on the streets, in protecting protesters, in tending to the wounded, and in prisons and detention centers.”
She said the demonstration was part of “preventive” action to block any attempts to establish strict conservative rule in the country.
“The people who took to the streets against the murderous regime are ready to come out again and to rule,” she added.
The demand for women’s right to participate in political life came days after Obaida Arnaout, spokesman for the new political administration, said “female representation in ministries or parliament... is premature,” citing “biological” and other considerations.
The remarks sparked criticism and anger among some Syrians, including protester Majida Mudarres, 50, a retired civil servant.
“Women have a big role in political life... We will be observing any position against women and will not accept it. The time in which we were silent is over,” she told AFP.
Assad’s family crushed dissent, ruling Syria with an iron fist for decades.
Fatima Hashem, 29, who writes television series, said Syrian women “must not be just partners but must lead the work of building a new Syria.”
Women must be “a major voice in the new society,” added Hashem, who was wearing a white hijab.
Under Assad’s anti-Islamist rule, women were involved in Syria’s political, social and economic life, with parliamentary and ministerial representation sometimes ranging between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Researcher Widad Kreidi said she was worried by some statements from HTS, which until just weeks ago ruled a conservative rebel bastion in Syria’s northwest.
“While men were fighting, women were keeping up the economy, feeding their children and taking care of their families,” Kreidi said.
“Nobody has the right to come to Damascus and attack women in any way,” she added.


UN votes overwhelmingly for ICJ probe of Israeli role in Gaza’s ‘dystopian humanitarian nightmare’

Updated 36 sec ago
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UN votes overwhelmingly for ICJ probe of Israeli role in Gaza’s ‘dystopian humanitarian nightmare’

  • 137 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Spain, vote in favor of the resolution, which was drafted by Norway
  • Norwegian deputy foreign minister says Israel is not collaborating with humanitarian organizations and is in breach of its obligations under international law
Ephrem Kossaify

The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to adopt a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on Israel’s humanitarian obligations to ensure and facilitate the unrestricted delivery of humanitarian aid necessary for the survival of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The resolution, drafted by Norway, was adopted with 137 member states voting in favor. Israel, the US and 10 other countries voted against it, and 22 abstained.
Israel’s parliament passed laws in October banning the UN’s aid agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, from operating inside Israel and East Jerusalem. Israel alleges that the agency, which has provided critical support for Palestinian refugees for seven decades, has been infiltrated by Hamas but has consistently failed to provide evidence to support the accusation.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has maintained strict control over the aid that enters the besieged territory. On Thursday, Human Rights Watch became the latest international organization to accuse Israeli authorities of carrying out acts of extermination and genocide against Palestinians by deliberately restricting access to water.
Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the UN’s humanitarian office in Gaza, said on Thursday that Israel was weaponizing the aid system, which is severely limiting the ability to provide assistance to civilians.
“Every day as an aid worker in Gaza, you’re forced to make horrible decisions,” he said. “Should I let people die of starvation or of the cold? Do we bring in more food to ease hunger, or more plastic sheets or some shelter from the rain at night? Do I cut back on hygiene supplies or do I bring in more painkillers for the sick and injured?”
Israeli support for humanitarian operations is “almost zero,” Petropoulos added.
“As the occupying power, it imposes blanket prohibitions on nearly everything. Commercial imports are being banned. Humanitarian equipment and supplies for Gaza are consistently blocked, and our own movements inside the Gaza Strip are most often denied in most areas.”
The resolution adopted by the UN on Thursday, which was co-sponsored by several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Spain, expresses “grave concern about the dire humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “calls upon Israel to uphold and comply with its obligations not to impede the Palestinian people from exercising its right to self-determination.”
The International Court of Justice is the UN’s highest judicial body. But while its advisory opinions hold legal and political significance, they are not legally binding. The court, based in The Hague, lacks the power to enforce its opinions if they are disregarded.
Norway’s deputy foreign minister, Andreas Kravik, said after the vote that the resolution follows several months during which the world has watched a catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza turn into “a dystopian nightmare.”
He added: “45,000 Palestinians have been killed — many more, probably, if you include those under the rubble — and we have an obligation, as representatives of the international community, to respond and to react, and that is what we did today with this resolution.”
While he said there was no lack of willingness among many countries and the UN to step up their humanitarian efforts in Gaza, Kravik lamented the lack of access to the territory as “the fundamental problem” they face.
“Israel is not collaborating,” he said. “Israel is not facilitating humanitarian access. (So) today, the international community has said, ‘Enough is enough.’
“Israel is claiming that they have a right to do what they’re doing. We are now seeking guidance from the highest court of the world, the ICJ, to punctuate this argument. We want clarity on the legal issues.
“We are determined. We are clear-eyed about Israel’s obligations. Israel, under international law, has an obligation to provide assistance, to collaborate with UN humanitarian organizations and third states and let them help those who are suffering.”

Libyan rivals agree to work with UN to end political deadlock

Updated 19 December 2024
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Libyan rivals agree to work with UN to end political deadlock

RABAT/TRIPOLI: Delegations from rival Libyan legislative bodies agreed at talks in Morocco on Thursday to work together with a United Nations mission to pave the way for elections to end years of political deadlock.

Libya has undergone a chaotic decade since it split in 2014 between two administrations in its east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

The talks in Bouznika, near the Moroccan capital Rabat, were between rival legislatures known as the High Council of State based in Tripoli in the west and the House of Representatives based in Benghazi in the east.

Restoring stability in Libya requires “free and fair elections,” the two bodies said in a final statement.

To that end, they agreed to cooperate with the UN mission in Libya to elaborate a roadmap to end the crisis in a way that ensures “Libyan ownership” of the political process.

The two bodies also agreed to cooperate to form a national unity government as well as launch institutional, financial and security reform.

Stephanie Koury, acting head of the UN mission in Libya, said last week the United Nations would convene a technical committee of Libyan experts to resolve contentious issues and put the country on a path to national elections.

A political process to end years of institutional division, outright warfare and unstable peace has been stalled since an election scheduled for December 2021 collapsed, amid disputes over the eligibility of the main candidates.


Operations at Beirut airport running efficiently, says Lebanon interior minister

Updated 19 December 2024
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Operations at Beirut airport running efficiently, says Lebanon interior minister

  • Israeli army continues demolishing homes amid reports of elderly woman missing in a border village

BEIRUT: Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has said security operations at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut are running efficiently.

The minister toured the airport on Thursday to assess security ahead of the holiday season and said every effort was being made to address any potential threat.

Earlier, he revealed that several Syrian figures linked to Bashar Assad’s regime had entered Lebanon from Syria and used the airport for international travel.

“Maher Al-Assad’s wife and son entered Lebanon and departed through the airport,” he said. “Anyone who enters Lebanon legally, regardless of their background, is allowed to exit through the airport.”

Mawlawi added that Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, former presidential special security and military advisor, had not entered Lebanon and would be arrested if he tried to do so.

“His photos have been circulated at Rafic Hariri International Airport to intercept any attempt to pass through using forged documents,” said the minister.

In 2013, the Lebanese military judiciary issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Mamlouk for allegedly orchestrating the transportation of explosives, intended for detonation in Lebanon, in the car of former minister Michel Samaha. In his indictment against Mamlouk, Lebanese investigative judge Riad Abou Ghaida later called for the death penalty.

On the southern side of the border, Israeli army bulldozers continued demolishing homes in the towns of Naqoura, Maroun al-Ras, Bani Hayyan, and the area between Qlyaa and Marjeyoun.

The findings of the committee overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, which convened on Wednesday to address ongoing Israeli land and air violations, were not disclosed.

A joint statement issued by the US and French embassies in Lebanon, along with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, said: “The committee will meet regularly and closely coordinate its work to achieve progress in the implementation of the ceasefire agreement and Resolution 1701.”

The municipality of Bani Haiyyan appealed to the authorities and the committee to take immediate action to bring about the withdrawal of Israeli forces.

A statement said: “The enemy has been destroying homes and places of worship and bulldozing the infrastructure without deterrence.”

It also urged the army, the Lebanese Red Cross and UNIFIL to “act swiftly to save the life of a sick elderly woman who remains in the town, facing physical and psychological pressure, and (who) has been out of contact since Wednesday.”


Blinken announces $200m in humanitarian aid for Sudan at UN Security Council

Updated 19 December 2024
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Blinken announces $200m in humanitarian aid for Sudan at UN Security Council

  • World Food Program warned that Sudan risked becoming the world’s largest hunger crisis

NEW YORK: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday announced $200 million in additional aid for Sudan at a United Nations Security Council meeting. 

The package will include food, shelter, and healthcare, in response to the ongoing conflict that has caused tens of thousands of deaths and the world’s largest displacement crisis.

During the session, Blinken emphasized the need for aid to be delivered safely and quickly to those in need.

He also pledged to use all available tools, including sanctions, to prevent abuses in Sudan and hold perpetrators accountable, urging others to adopt similar measures.

The UN says that nearly 25 million people in Sudan require aid, with famine affecting displacement camps.

Since the war began in April 2023, amid a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), 11 million people have been displaced, including 3 million who fled to other countries.

Also on Thursday, the World Food Program warned that Sudan risked becoming the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history, and the only place globally currently where famine has been confirmed.

A spokesperson said some 4.7 million children under age of five were suffering from severe malnutrition in the country.