(ANSA) – ROME, MARCH 15 – Exactly 11 years after the outbreak of the war in Syria, 60% of the population suffers from hunger, with food prices doubling in the last year. The country has hitherto relied on food imports from Russia, but now, with the Ukrainian crisis, food prices may become even more prohibitive.
This is the alarm launched today by Oxfam, which carried out a survey among 300 Syrians in the areas of the country controlled by the government: 90% of the interviewees declared that at the moment they can only afford a little bread and rice, only occasionally vegetables .
In an economic system already reduced to a minimum by more than a decade of war, two years of pandemic and the Lebanese banking crisis, at this moment the sanctions on Russia have a disruptive effect, causing the interruption of imports of food and fuel, with the Syrian pound which is depreciating at a dizzying speed.
“Six out of 10 Syrians literally don’t know how to get food – said Paolo Pezzati, policy advisor for humanitarian emergencies at Oxfam Italia – In the area around Damascus, people queue for bread, while children search something to eat among the rubbish. To survive many families are getting into debt, or decide to send their children to work, they ration the number of meals. To have one less mouth to feed, they marry their daughters, even minors. unspeakable effects of a forgotten conflict, in a country where 90% of the population lives below the poverty line, the unemployment rate has reached 60% and the minimum monthly wage in the public sector is 26 dollars “. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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