According to the latest report of the United Nations World Food Programme, about 55% of Syria's population, or 12.9 million people, face food insecurity, of which 3.1 million people face severe food insecurity. At the beginning of this year, the World Food Programme (WFP) representative in Syria noted that Syrians are vulnerable and unstable and are in dire need of food aid. For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP) is also calling on the international community to lend a helping hand to help Syrians cope with the urgent food crisis. Syria, which used to be an exporter of wheat and other grains, is now facing the problem of not having enough to eat. What is the reason behind it? Let's take a look at the recent investigative report of the reporter of the main station.
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Flatbread is available in limited quantities Syrians struggle to fill their stomachs
Despite the severe fuel crisis in Syria, the machinery in the government's flatbread supply points is still running 24 hours a day, as it is a staple food source for all Syrians. The dough is pressed into a dough, and the upper and lower layers are baked at different temperatures, and the dough is instantly divided into two layers, and finally becomes a flatbread filled with air in the middle. This is a unique method of making flatbread in Syria, and the fragrant flatbread is a staple food for Syrians every day. Now, the staple food we depend on is in short supply.
Two years ago, the government gave each family a card to control the amount of flatbread they bought.
Reporter Wang Weiwei: How do Syrians buy flatbread, they need such a card. The person inside told me that I could buy two flatbreads today with the card in my hand.
Ziyad, head of the Syrian flatbread supply point: For example, a person's family can buy flatbread on Monday, but not on Tuesday, and can (buy) two bags on Wednesday, but not on Thursday and Friday.
Such a quota means that an adult can only have a maximum of two flatbreads a day. In Syria today, ordinary families do not eat meat and vegetables except for flatbread. Therefore, the phenomenon of not having enough to eat is common.
Syrian housewife Fatima: Our food is mainly flatbread, and the state is trying its best to provide us with flatbread, but it can't meet all our needs.
Before the Syrian crisis, Syria's annual wheat production was about 6 million tonnes, but now that figure has plummeted to 500,000 tonnes, less than a tenth of what it used to be. There are many reasons behind this, such as the decline in the peasant population brought about by the war, the lack of agricultural production equipment, and so on. But the Syrian government says one of the main causes of the food crisis is the occupation of wheat-producing areas in Syria by foreign powers.
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The U.S. military and other forces prevented farmers from selling grain to the Syrian government
In order to further verify the cause of the food crisis in Syria, a reporter from the main station recently won the opportunity to interview the head of the Syrian Food Programme, Sammy, which is also the first time that the agency has been interviewed by foreign media since its establishment in 2019.
Wang Weiwei: In 2019, the Syrian government established a new WFP to better address the issue of food security. Today we are interviewing the WFP Administrator to learn first-hand about the wheat problem in Syria.
The head of the Syrian government's WFP, Sami is very busy, and it is now the wheat harvest season, but the huge shortage of wheat is already reflected in the data.
Sami Governor, WFP: We have received more than 500,000 tonnes [of wheat], but the annual demand is between 2.4 million tonnes and 2.6 million tonnes.
In the morning of the interview, Sami was anxious to negotiate with the representatives of wheat exports from the two countries. Syrians are not accustomed to such negotiations, because before the Syrian crisis broke out, Syria was an exporter of wheat.
Sami, Director General of the Food Programme of the Syrian Government: Before the war, we produced 5 million to 6 million tons of wheat a year, enough to make staple bread, some of which was exported abroad, but because of the war and the blockade and occupation of wheat-producing areas, we lost this advantage.
Sami told reporters that the main reason for the decline in Syria's annual wheat production from 6 million tons to 500,000 tons is that the wheat producing areas are occupied by the US military and the opposition forces supported by Kurdish forces.
Wang Weiwei: Syrians call this fertile land sandwiched between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers the peninsula. The main provinces are Hasakah, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The peninsula is one of the most agriculturally rich regions in Syria, producing 70% of Syria's wheat in 2011. Syrian media say that Syria can hardly continue to exist as an agrarian state without the peninsula. However, the illegal U.S. military in Syria and its allies, the Kurdish forces, happened to occupy the Syrian peninsula.
Now the Syrian government still has a small enclave in Hasakah province. It's wheat harvest season, and the Syrian government and U.S.-backed opposition forces are fighting for food for farmers in Hasakah province.
This year, the Syrian government offered a price of 900 Syrian pounds higher than that of the rebels. But the wheat harvest is still not available.
Before the US occupation, the Syrian government bought about 1.5 million tonnes of wheat a year from Hasakah province, but this year's figure is just 100,000 tonnes.
Dura, Representative of the Syrian Government's WFP in Hasakah Province: They [the U.S.-backed opposition forces] control the area there and prevent any cars loaded with wheat from reaching our (harvesting) centers, and in order for them to get to us, they have to pass through the areas they control.
As the opposition forces do not allow foreign media from Damascus to enter the areas under their control, we interviewed the president of the Hasakah Farmers' Association remotely, Kaku, through various efforts. His words also corroborate the assertion that farmers are deliberately preventing farmers from selling grain to the Syrian government.
Kaku, President of the Hasakah Provincial Farmers' Association: The obstacles we face are the occupation of the United States and other forces, and those forces that prevent farmers from sending their crops to the government (harvest) centers, blocking the roads is unreasonable, we want to work for our own country, to provide the people with the bread necessary for their livelihood.
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Eyewitness: U.S. troops plundered Syrian wheat for shipment abroad
Where did the U.S. military send the wheat after snatching it from the Syrian government? The reporter of the main station found a key eyewitness, who is a farmer living in a village on the border between Syria and Iraq. He took great risks to tell us what he saw.
On the morning of June 26, we were in Damascus as we prepared to wait for Faiz, a Syrian farmer living in an area controlled by illegal U.S. troops in Syria, to come online.
Faiz is from a village in northeastern Hasakah governorate, 3 kilometres from the illegal Mahmoudi border crossing on the Syrian-Iraqi border and about 6 kilometres from a nearby US military base.
While we waited, Faiz was traveling more than 200 kilometres from his village to the city of Hasakah to be interviewed remotely by us.
Reporter Wang Weiwei: How did you get to Hasakah City, and was it difficult on the way?
Eyewitness Faiz: There are more than 20 checkpoints on the road, and most of the time we have to pass through villages to avoid the checkpoints of the opposition forces. We rode motorbikes to avoid roads with opposition forces, and there were a couple of checkpoints where they also checked their phones and ID documents, and we tried to avoid them.
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Eyewitness: Exposing the smuggling of US troops is at great risk
Interviewed by us as an eyewitness to the U.S. military's wheat grab, Faiz was at great risk. He said that through more than 20 checkpoints, if a photo of a mobile phone is found, he will be immediately detained.
Wang Weiwei: Have you seen the US military transporting grain through the Mahmoudi illegal border crossing?
Eyewitness Faiz: I've seen them almost every day since the May harvest season. Every day, 15 to 20 large trucks, all bearing the license plates of Nineveh or Erbil, are departing from Tal Alou, more than 10 kilometres away from Yarubiyah, to the US military base near Yarubiyah and then to Mahmoudi. The trucks were escorted by U.S. military vehicles and most often accompanied by helicopters, which was an almost daily occurrence until the end of the harvest season. Trucks gathered at Tula Alu, where they collected the grain they bought from farmers and then transported it out through the illegal Mahmoudi border crossing.
During the interview, Faiz showed us photographs of U.S. military food shipments that could lead to his detention.
Eyewitness Faiz: Here are some pictures, all the trucks are full of wheat because they are all coming out of the silos in Tullalu. All the local silos were filled with grain, and the trucks left Tulla Alu and headed in the direction of Mahmoudi, the trucks were loaded with wheat. This is another photo, we take pictures almost every day, but the problem is that most days we have to delete these photos due to the checkpoints, they (the opposition forces supported by the US military) constantly check the phone, they can even recover the phone's memory card, which contains the photo files that have been deleted.
Faiz also described to us what he saw as the day-to-day activities of illegal U.S. troops in Syria.
Eyewitness Faiz: The US military patrols the main roads in the Yarubiyah area every day, and one of the US military bases is only about 6 kilometers away from us, and there are constantly various vehicles loaded with Syrian resources coming into the base, which is an occupation and we hope to be able to get rid of it. What they did was starve us, they deprived us of food and everything, they made our lives very hard. The villages and people here only want the American troops to leave our country so that we can go back to the way we were before 2011, where we used to live happily, comfortably, and they deprived us of our flatbread, of food, and made us starving.
Wang Weiwei: Throughout the series of interviews, all the farmers, officials, and informants in Hasakah province that we met kept telling us about the high risk of exposing these incidents. If a report is discovered, the consequence is imprisonment. But they still hope that the truth will be known to the outside world, and that Syria will return to pre-war stability.
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Syrian officials have repeatedly condemned the US military's violation of Syria's sovereignty
The Syrian government has repeatedly condemned the actions of US troops in Syria, saying that they have violated Syria's sovereignty, deprived Syria of its wealth and resources, and violated international law. The Syrian News Agency reported that the U.S. military frequently used convoys to move Syria's vital supplies such as wheat and oil out of the country's northeast. At the same time, Syria is facing a severe food crisis and oil shortage.
Source: CCTV News