The Significance of Bread Lines in Syria
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You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Tuesday, January 7th. I'm Greg Dixon. Weeks ago, the Assad regime in Syria fell rapidly and a new interim government was formed by the rebels that helped topple Assad. And that new government now faces many challenges in keeping the country running.

One of the most visible signs of the government's struggle? Bread lines. NPR's Dia Hadid takes us to a bakery in Damascus. There's a line for men and another for women outside this bakery that pumps out industrial quantities of bread. Each line has dozens of people, and the bread they're hoping to buy costs up to 10 times more than it did under the old Assad regime.

The dinner plate-sized pieces of flatbread thump off a conveyor belt onto a table near the counter. One woman hands over money for 48 pieces. It's just a few days' supply for most Syrian families in a country where bread is the staple. SIREN BLARES

There are scenes like this across Damascus. At another bakery, 35-year-old Rahaf, mother to eight, jokes to me that she's only alive because she's not dead. Rahaf, like all the other Syrians I hear from, didn't want to give her full name. They fear reprisals because they're talking about a sensitive topic. Those bread lines are telling you a story about...

Syria today, why this Assad government fell, and the challenges that face

this new regime. Joshua Landis is a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma. He says bread is so politically sensitive in Syria that the Assad regime heavily subsidized it, but it often wasn't available. Landis says that's partly why Assad was toppled. And if this government can't resolve the bread crisis, it will become both a hunger crisis and a political one. It's very hard for us to understand

how most Syrians are surviving. They're just barely subsisting. Like Noor, he's 21 but looks 12. Thin, short, gaunt. He's dreamily chewing on a scrap of bread. I'm just resting for a bit, he says. I waited for an hour in line for this.

The bread lines and the prices are sensitive for the new regime. I see two men approach Noor. Later, he tells me they've told him not to talk.

These bread lines have created their own industry. Poor folks buy up the bread and resell it by the roadside. Among them is 12-year-old Mohamed, whose back aches from standing in line all day. He resells the bread to people like this 33-year-old single mother. She's got young kids at home and she can't waste time standing in line. I have children because my husband died, you know.

Despite the new hardship, she says this is better than the Assad regime which detained her husband. He never returned. She says we're no longer living in fear. She's got faith in this government. And over the weekend, Syrian officials announced that public sector pay would increase by four times to help alleviate the current economic crisis. Analysts say there's a few reasons why the price of bread is increasing.

As rebels seized Damascus, the Syrian currency tumbled, in turn pushing up prices. And Russia, which was a close ally of the former Assad regime, used to supply Syria's wheat flour. Now the Reuters news agency says Moscow's halted supplies. But one country has offered help, Ukraine, another of the world's great wheat producers, which also happens to be fighting against Russia.

In a recent visit to Damascus, Ukraine's foreign minister, Andriy Sibiha, announced a gift of 500 tons of flour. He says more's on the way. That may depend on the new Syrian government renouncing the former Assad regime's recognition of Russia's annexation of Ukrainian land. Outside the bakeries, people are impatient. We walk down one bread line.

And one man tells us to stop recording. It's not clear who he is, but it can also be risky to ask. OK, I'm done, I tell him. A few feet away, a retired schoolteacher stops me. He tells me, I've been waiting in this line for two hours. He says, this regime told us it's bringing freedom, but we can't buy bread. Dear Hadid, NPR News, Damascus.

That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.

Thank you.

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