Naima, 52, who cleans houses in Damascus to make a living, laments losing her job because of the measures taken to fight the pandemic. She usually starts planning for Ramadan three months in advance, stocking food, preservable vegetables, macaroni, groats, greens, and peas.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, she says this year she couldn't do this as she has not been working since quarantine measures were announced banning public transportation since March 22. Naima says she cannot bear the costs of private transportation that would amount to a third of her daily wage of 6,000 Syrian pounds.
“I don’t know if I will be able to fast this year," she says.
Naima is one of thousands of the Syrian women widowed by the war and forced to become breadwinners. During the war, she fasted Ramadan even while living under siege, but these restrictions seem even more difficult as there is no work or aid and prices are swelling.
"If a kilo of onions costs 1,000 pounds, what are we going to eat to break our fast?" she wonders.
Damascene merchants expect further increases in the prices of some basic imported items like sugar and rice, which may increase up to 30 percent as demand grows on these materials during Ramadan. However, Hassan Azkoul, a member of the board of directors of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, predicts the opposite: “The prices of basic consumer goods have now peaked because of the coronavirus crisis, so they will not increase during Ramadan”, as reported by the Al-Watan newspaper.
Naima, who spoke about the rising prices of onions, garlic and a few vegetables, did not mention the price of meat, especially red meat, which most Syrians have replaced with chicken. Their prices are expected to keep rising as the costs of producing them and smuggling them out of the county continue to rise. The price of a kilo of chicken soared to 3,000 pounds from 2,000 pounds at the beginning of the month, the price of veal went from 5,000 pounds to 9,000 pounds, while the price of sheep meat jumped from 8,000 pounds to 12,000 pounds; thus, many items have become too expensive for Syrians to buy, as the average salary is no more than 60,000 pounds in the public sector.
The government in Damascus is trying to control prices this Ramadan, by taking vegetables and fruits directly from farms and selling them at cost price, in addition to increasing imports of basic items that it sells at subsidized prices via the smart card.
Abo Khodor, a vegetable merchant at the Damascus Central Market, tells Asharq Al-Awsat that the prices of fruits and vegetables in the capital are 50 percent higher than they are in other provinces because of the increased transportation costs and that he expects demand for fruits and vegetables this Ramadan to be lower than it was last year because of the lack of liquidity as people have stopped working. He adds: “The exacerbation of poverty and the fears over the virus will force the majority to spend austerely”.
It seems that austerity will not be limited to the poor who make up more than 83 percent of the Syrian population and may be imposed on the well-off minority, as a Damascene engineer who has a good salary says. Explaining that “the quarantine measures will lead to canceling many Ramadan festivities, there will be no big family gatherings for Iftar on the first few days of fasting, and families won't also dine in restaurants.
The engineer says that the rituals of Ramadan were a source of relief from war suffering for Syrians, it was an escape from the crises of power outages to shortages of water and gas and many other basic goods and utilities.
“But this year we will miss this breathing space due to quarantine measures that have compounds psychological pressure, starting with fears of the spread of coronavirus and obsessions with sterilization and in addition to family tensions."
