Syria Gets Its First Wheat Shipment Since Bashar Al-Assad’s Ouster

Syrian authorities said a wheat shipment arrived on Sunday at the country’s Mediterranean port of Latakia, the first since the December ouster of former ruler Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian authority for land and sea ports said in a statement that “the first ship carrying wheat since the fall of the former regime arrived today at Latakia port, carrying 6,600 tonnes of wheat”.

The statement did not specify where the wheat came from, but the authority published an image of the vessel, the Pola Marina, which according to the website Marine Traffic is a Russian-flagged ship that departed from the port of Rostov-on-Don earlier this month.

“This shipment is part of ongoing efforts to secure basic needs and strengthen food security,” the port authority statement said, noting “the arrival of more vital supplies in the coming period”.

The authority called the shipment “a clear indication of a new phase in economic recovery” in Syria.

Domestic wheat production averaged 4.1 million tonnes in the years prior to the Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011 after Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Before the conflict, production was enough to meet local demand, but harvests then plunged to record lows, leading to increased dependence on imports, especially from Assad ally Russia.

A former Latakia port official told AFP on condition of anonymity that “we used to get at least one shipment of Russian wheat around every month” prior to Assad’s ouster.

The latest shipment comes after a February report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that “nine out of ten Syrians live in poverty and face food insecurity”.

The report said that “by 2024, national wheat production was estimated to cover only 65 percent of consumption needs”.

The new authorities have been pushing for Assad-era sanctions — which do not apply to wheat — to be removed to revive the country’s battered economy and support reconstruction after nearly 14 years of war.

In late December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country had sent its first shipment of food aid, 500 tonnes of wheat flour, to Syria.

This article has been republished from The NDTV