Originally posted to The Middle East Monitor website, 22 June 2021
The Syrian regime is reported to have closed down a bakery in the coastal governorate of Lattakia and arrested its owner due to his possession of flour exceeding the daily allocation set by the authorities.
According to the Syrian Observer, which cited regime-affiliated media, the Monitoring and Inspection Authority in Lattakia seized the bakery located in the city’s Saqoubin neighbourhood last week.
The owner was found by the governing body to have possessed 12 bags of catering flour which exceeds the regime’s daily allocation for bakeries and was accused by authorities of involvement in the smuggling and trafficking of flour on the black market.
Over the past year of the severe shortage of essentials such as wheat and fuel in Syria, a ‘bread crisis’ has spread throughout regime-controlled areas and led to the regime taking control of many bakeries while implementing a rationing strategy through its ‘smart card system’.
It is part of a series of economic crises in which prices throughout both regime and opposition-controlled territories have sharply risen, leaving much of the population unable to afford essentials.
As part of that system, the daily allocation of flour set by the regime’s rationing strategy is reportedly not enough for bakeries to maintain themselves, forcing many bakers to buy more flour at higher prices on the black market.
The arrest of the bakery’s owner comes six months after the regime threatened to imprison any bakers who sell the wrong amount of bread.
Link to the original post: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210622-assad-regime-arrests-syria-baker-for-possession-of-extra-flour/
