Videos are circulating online which allegedly show protests in Jaramana, close to the Syrian capital of Damascus, against the collapse of the Syrian pound.
NEW — protesters are rampaging across Jaramana in #Damascus, protesting against the collapse of #Syria's Pound & the #Assad regime's failure to respond.
This is virtually unprecedented since 2011-12.pic.twitter.com/WHsVtNzah9
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) July 23, 2023
This month, the Syrian pound recorded a historic collapse against the US dollar as its exchange rate hit the lowest ever, 12,0000 Syrian pounds to the dollar.
At the beginning of this year, the market rate was around 6,500 Syrian pounds to the dollar. Before protests in 2011, Syria's Arab Spring, the Syrian pound traded at 47 to the dollar.
Reports online say protesters are calling for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
?? Capital city under Assad regime in #Syria
located 10 km southeast of central #Damascus
demonstrations and protests erupted in Ceramana region demanding the overthrow of Assad https://t.co/DfFv3eRLZU pic.twitter.com/MOC6DGYhzN— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) July 23, 2023
A series of disasters, including a 12-year war involving foreign powers and armed groups that has killed over 500,000 civilians and displaced 6.7 million refugees, has pushed the country into an economic crisis.
READ: Civil war in Syria aggravates suffering of cancer patients
On top of this, Western sanctions, twin earthquakes which hit Syria in February killing 6,000, and economic crises in neighbouring Lebanon and Turkiye have further exacerbated Syria's economic troubles and pushed prices up.
According to UN figures, at the end of 2022, 70 per cent of people in northwest Syria were food insecure and 90 per cent of people need humanitarian assistance.
Children are suffering from chronic undernutrition and are at risk of physical and psychological damage, and there is one of the largest education crises in recent history.
There have been several protests across Syria since the revolution, including in April this year when hundreds took to the streets of Idlib to demonstrate the rapprochement between Arab countries and Bashar Al-Assad.
After the war, several Arab countries severed ties with the Syrian president with Turkiye and Saudi Arabia backing the opposition groups.
In December 2022 protesters suffering from high prices, water cuts and power outages stormed the governor's office in the southern city of Suweida and called for the downfall of Al-Assad.
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
Spotted an error on this page? Let us know
