QAMISHLI, Syria— Residents of the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli near the border with Turkey say there are days where they cannot find any bread in the bakeries. A bread crisis has recently emerged in the city, with only a handful of bakeries still operating amid a flour shortage. "I came twice to buy bread, but it was finished. I asked them for bread, but they said we ran out of bread," says Suleiman Hussein, a displaced Syrian living in Qamishli. Even if he does find bread, Hussein says it is sometimes too expensive that he cannot afford to buy it. In Qamishli, the Kurds share control with government forces, which have a presence in security zones, near the airport and in some neighborhoods. The Baath oven inside Qamishli, which is owned by the Syrian state, is one of the main ovens that still provide bread at a subsidised price. But most of the bakeries in the city are getting only half of their shares of flour. The shortage relates to a change in the administration of some of the flour mills in the area. Salman Barudo, the co-chair of the Agriculture and Economy Board in the Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria, says the board had to jump in and run three mills. But they are not enough to cover the area's flour needs so authorities are forced to rent private mills and provide them with wheat in order to cover the shortage, says Barudo. According to Barudo, the economy board is still giving out flour to nine bakeries but only handing them half the amount of flour they need. The challenge at hand is to cover their full needs, he adds. Kurdish-held areas in the Syria's northeast are the source of Syria's grains. So, distributing the staple resource has been a source of tension between the government and the Kurdish-led administration, where selling grains and oil to the government is a major source of revenue. War-ravaged Syria is facing a severe economic crisis that has caused major shortages in wheat and fuel products. Long lines have formed outside of gas stations and bakeries as the government rationed what it has, further deepening the crunch felt by Syrians.
