Syria is experiencing difficult economic conditions and social disintegration.
After about 13 years of the Syrian crisis and war that destroyed the country amid foreign intervention, to achieve special goals.. it still Syria You live in a state of dispersion and disintegration.
In a report by the newspaper,Le MondeThe French newspaper stated that Syria is still suffering from extreme poverty and its society is still disintegrating. The newspaper asked what has remained of Syria since the end of the civil war that began in 2011, during the wave of the “Arab Spring”? It said that the reports it has been publishing successively since September 15 provide valuable information, showing that Syria is a more closed country than ever before, and presenting worrying lessons.
These reports describe a country that has reached a slow and desperate internal collapse, after the outbreak of the war waged by the Syrian regime and the armed opposition with incredible brutality, and it does not stop at the irrecoverable ruins and the widespread poverty, but rather dismembers society and obliterates a generation that the temptations of exile have torn apart what the war has not crushed.
Causes of collapse
The newspaper reported that the reasons for this collapse are known, as the Assad family in Damascus won support from Iran and Russia, driven by their own strategic interests, as the former focused on its survival and the latter was preoccupied with its war in Ukraine.
She added that no one has the means to complete the full restoration of Bashar al-Assad’s control over the area, parts of which are still outside his control, let alone finance the costly and long-term reconstruction process.
Le Monde pointed out that the influence that Iran has gained over the past decade in a region that has lost a large part of its sovereignty, as well as the sanctions imposed by the West, constitute a final obstacle, especially the Caesar Act, which was adopted by the US Congress to protect civilians in Syria in 2019 in the name of combating impunity.
international fatigue
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad believes, according to the newspaper, that realpolitik will eventually lead to the disappearance of these sanctions, once the only power remaining to him is recognized, which is the inconvenience caused by his harmful role in smuggling destructive drugs on a large scale in the region, without giving up the slightest bit of power.
However, this calculation remains in vain, because the symbolic reintegration of Syria into the Arab League has not changed the predicament in which Syria finds itself.
The newspaper concluded that this impasse continues to cause international irritation, especially in the countries that have received the largest number of Syrian refugees displaced by the civil war, because whenever they believe that their countries have become safe for the return of refugees, reports show that this is not the case.
Syrian refugees around the world
According to the latest UN statistics, there are more than 13 million Syrians “forcibly displaced,” and in 2023 alone, another 174,000 people were displaced within Syria, bringing the total number to 7.2 million internally displaced persons, and 6.5 million refugees and asylum seekers abroad.
The UN organization says in a statement that the numbers mentioned represent “countless humanitarian disasters,” each of which has “a story of loss.”
For years now, Syria has been the largest refugee crisis in the world, with the vast majority of refugees distributed in Turkey, more than 3 million refugees, followed by Lebanon, then Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and finally to European countries, led by Germany.
Despite the United Nations’ continued assurances that “Syria is not safe for their return,” countries have recently moved to launch “voluntary return campaigns” that human rights organizations consider “forced,” and that their mechanisms involve many risks, intimidation, and restrictions.
The above is confirmed by a report published by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which stated that it documented no less than 4,714 cases of arbitrary arrest of returning refugees and displaced persons at the hands of Syrian regime forces, from the beginning of 2014 until June 2024.
The human rights network also documented the killing of at least 367 civilians, including 56 children, 34 women, and 43 people under torture, and the arrest of 828 people during the year 2024.
Its report also stated that “the violations that are still being practiced in Syria, which were the main reason behind the flight of millions of Syrians from their country, are still ongoing.”
While she stressed that these violations are the main reason behind the failure of refugees to return and even the generation of more of them, she pointed out the absence of any prospect for stopping them or holding those involved accountable, most notably the Syrian regime forces.
collapsed economy
The latest UN estimates indicate that the population of Syria is about 23 million people, of whom about 7.25 million are internally displaced, and about two million of these displaced people live in camps.
UN reports confirm that a very large proportion of Syria’s basic infrastructure is still destroyed, and that about 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line. Millions of Syrians are still internally displaced (about 31% of the total population), and suffer from a lack or loss of civil documents, as well as a lack, loss or damage to housing, land and property documents.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that nearly 7.5 million Syrian children need humanitarian assistance, and that more than 650,000 children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition.
While the minimum cost of living in Syria has risen to record levels due to inflation and the absence of production requirements, the minimum wage in Syria, which has recently become 280 thousand liras, does not cover more than 2% of this minimum cost at best. The truth is that this wide gap between the level of income and the requirements of living is the core of the problem in the Syrian economic scene as a whole.
The Syrian currency has lost 83% of its value in the last three years and 53% during the past year, and its deterioration continues during the first quarter of this year.
To confront this difficult living reality, most Syrians resort to relying on additional sources of income, the most important of which are remittances from expatriates outside Syria, and changing eating habits by reducing spending on food to a minimum, to the point that it has become common for a large segment of the Syrian people to be satisfied with one meal a day.
agricultural deterioration
According to UN statistics, there are more than 12 million people in Syria today who lack food security and another 2.9 million are at risk of sliding into hunger.
The agricultural sector is one of the most important and most affected sectors in Syria and one of the factors that plays an important role in food security, as the area of agricultural land constitutes about 32% of the total area, and more than 20% of Syrians work in this sector.
Due to the significant decline in food crop and livestock production, local markets are complaining of a lack of food supplies in addition to high prices, after the heavy losses suffered by farmers and workers in the agricultural and livestock sectors, all of which are factors that have contributed to the exacerbation of food insecurity.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the value of losses resulting from damage to the agricultural sector reached 16 billion dollars.
Wheat harvest in the Syrian city of Raqqa (AFP)
Absent solutions
2023 was the worst year ever for Syrians in terms of economic conditions, especially after the earthquake disaster on February 6, 2023, which struck southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria, killing at least 8,476 people and injuring more than 14,500 others in Syria, and had negative effects on nearly 11 million people, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
With the middle class disappearing, unemployment rates rising steadily and a war economy prevailing, corruption and drug trafficking are more prevalent than ever.
Escape from Syria
Every year, the Syrian people’s hope for a political solution is renewed in order to turn the page on the ugliest conflict of the twenty-first century.
But it seems that the battle with the regime continues and it is a long battle, because it is a struggle between the values of security and stability and the chaos of the regime, a battle between freedom and tyranny, and justice versus injustice, and this naturally requires the unity of the Syrians in order to cross to the safe shore, Syria in which all Syrians share, and are equal before the law in rights and duties.
Syrians at a crossing with Türkiye (AFP)
This was what many people thought, but reality tells a worse story.
We are still witnessing many families flocking to passport issuance centers to obtain a passport that will enable them to escape from Syria to any destination.
Young men are evading military service, and families are fleeing economic crises that have overwhelmed and exhausted them, after many sold their homes and lands at a low price to war merchants.
The situation in Syria has become unbearable. Neither fathers are able to meet their children’s demands due to low wages and high living costs, nor are children able to understand what is happening to them. They have the right to have some joy and fun and to feel their childhood in the midst of the bitterness of life. In light of all this, the Syrian regime has not put in place plans or solutions. On the contrary, today it is issuing passports by the thousands every day. It did not stop there, but rather raised the prices of issuing passports to become the most expensive passport in the world.
