The problem is most acute in post-conflict areas facing economic depression and where corruption has flourished. In Syria, the United Nations Development Program says poverty rates are now around 90%, up from around 50 to 60% in 2019, when violence was significantly more widespread. The number of people considered food insecure rose from 7.9 million in 2019 to over 12 million in 2020.
have an income, working poor, with one job, with two jobs in the family, who are unable to meet their basic food needs,” the UNDP resident representative in Syria told CNN, Ramla Khalidi. “What this means is that they skip meals, go into debt, eat less expensive and less nutritious meals.”
About 98% of people said food was their main expense. “Fresh fruits and vegetables are a luxury and they skip meat in their diet,†says Khalidi.
Syria’s “massive and severe poverty” has been exacerbated by the slump phone number library in finances in neighboring Lebanon that began in 2019. The Lebanese economy was previously seen as a lifeline for a financially and diplomatically isolated Damascus. A crushing sanctions regime on areas under the control of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who represents most of the country, was made worse by the Caesar law in 2020. This was intended to bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad back to negotiations led by the UN. table, but instead it has further devastated an already struggling economy, and the president’s reign continues unperturbed.
In parts of Syria that escape Assad’s rule – namely the north-east of the Kurdish-controlled country and the north-west which is in the grip of fundamentalist Islamist rebels – the economy is also in tatters. .
“We are talking about people who
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