In the early hours of a Monday morning, Syria's government raised fuel prices by as much as 40 percent, and by dawn the country's streets had answered back. The decree landed on a population where nearly nine in ten people already live below the poverty line — a society still piecing itself together after a decade of war that ended less than a year ago. What followed was not merely protest but a reckoning with the distance between a government's economic logic and the daily arithmetic of survival.
Syria's fuel price surge deepens economic crisis for impoverished population
Nearly 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line; fuel hikes directly threaten survival by raising food and transport costs for an already impoverished population.