Syria, once an exporter of wheat and other grains, is now facing a shortage of food. What is the reason behind it? Let's take a look at the exclusive investigation of the reporter of the main station↓
Syria has a limited supply of flatbread
A maximum of two tickets a day for an adult
According to the latest report from the United Nations World Food Programme, about 55% of Syria's population, or 12.9 million people, face food insecurity, with 3.1 million of them facing acute food insecurity.
At the beginning of this year, the World Food Programme (WFP) representative in Syria noted that Syrians are in a fragile and precarious situation and are in dire need of food aid.
The staple food of Syrians is flatbread. Due to the lack of supply of staple foods, two years ago the government issued a card to each household to control the amount of flatbread purchased.
Due to the quota, there is currently a maximum of two flatbreads a day for an adult. In addition to flatbread, ordinary families often do not eat meat and vegetables, and it is common to not have enough to eat.
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 it, such as the decline in the agricultural population brought about by the war, the lack of agricultural production equipment, etc. 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.
Syria's main grain-producing areas were destroyed by the US military
and occupation by armed opposition forces
Recently, a reporter from the main station won the opportunity to interview the head of the Syrian Food Programme, al-Sammy, which is also the first time that the agency has been interviewed by foreign media since its establishment in 2019.
Sami told the main station reporter that the main reason for the sharp decline in Syria's annual wheat production is that the wheat producing areas are occupied by the US military and the opposition forces it supports, the Kurdish forces.
The Syrians refer to the fertile land sandwiched between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers as the peninsula region. The main provinces are Hasakah, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor. In 2011, the peninsula produced 70 percent of Syria's total wheat.
Now that the Syrian government still has a small enclave in Hasakah province, it is the wheat harvest season, and the Syrian government and the U.S.-backed opposition are fighting for food for farmers in Hasakah province.
This year, the Syrian government offered a price 900 Syrian pounds higher than that of the opposition forces, but it still failed to harvest the wheat. Before the US occupation, the Syrian government bought about 1.5 million tonnes of wheat annually from Hasakah province, but this year it only bought 100,000 tonnes.
"The U.S.-backed opposition forces control the area there and prevent any cars loaded with wheat from reaching our grain collection center," said Durra, the representative of the Syrian government's WFP in Hasakah province. ”
Kaku, president of the Hasakah Provincial Farmers' Association, also said: "...... Blocking roads is unjustified, we want to work for our country and provide the population with the bread necessary for life. ”
There are more than a dozen large trucks every day
Transporting grain looted by the U.S. military to the outside of the country
Faiz, a Syrian farmer, comes from a village in northeastern Hasakah province, 3 kilometers from the illegal border crossing in Mahmoudi, on the Syrian-Iraqi border.
On the 26th, Faiz took great risks and traveled more than 200 kilometers from his village to the city of Hasakah to be interviewed remotely by the reporters of the main station. He said that there are more than 20 checkpoints on the road, and if the photos are found on his mobile phone, he will be immediately detained.
"They can even recover the phone's memory card which contains the photo files that have already been deleted."
During the interview, Faiz showed photographs of U.S. military food shipments that could lead to his detention.
"From the beginning of the May harvest season, there are 15 to 20 large trucks almost every day, and they are escorted by US military vehicles and most of the time helicopters until the end of the harvest season," Faiz said. ”
Faiz said the trucks were transporting grain out of Syria through the illegal Mahmoudi crossing. "They deprived us of food and everything, and they made our lives very difficult. The villages and people here only want the American army to leave our country. ”
Source | CCTV Military