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Assad regime orders militia to smuggle wheat from Kurdish areas

December 8, 2020 at 3:11 pm

Wheat farm, 16 December 2016 [askewallz/Pixabay]

The Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad has apparently been ordering an allied militia to smuggle wheat from the Kurdish-held areas in the north-east of the country, amid the worsening bread crisis gripping the country.

According to reports in the Syrian opposition outlet the Ain al-Furat Network, the regime ordered the Qatirji militia to smuggle two trucks of wheat through the crossings over the River Euphrates. In order to carry out the regime’s orders, the militia was required to drop the transportation of other goods such as barley, allowing it to smuggle around 200 tons of wheat over the past week from the territories held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

There is a severe shortage of essentials in Syria such as wheat and fuel, causing prices to rise and bread to be limited across regime-held areas. The shortage has prompted the authorities to import large supplies of lower-quality wheat from Russia, and the production of bread has been taken over by the government in order to ration and subsidise its distribution through a smart card system.

According to the sources quoted by the network, the wheat smuggling also comes as Russian exporters have cancelled some of their supplies to Syria. The amount of wheat in storage has thus fallen even further.

This is not the first time that the regime-aligned Qatirji militia has smuggled goods on behalf of Assad. It was reported to have smuggled oil from the SDF-held areas in the north-east and the eastern province of Deir Ez-Zor earlier this year.

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