MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's been weeks since rebels toppled the Assad regime in Syria and formed a new interim government. That government is already facing a serious challenge - bread lines, as NPR's Diaa Hadid reports from Damascus. Before we begin, please note that some Syrians interviewed for this story only gave their first names or asked not to be named at all. That's because they were worried their words could get them in trouble with the new interim government.
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DIAA HADID, BYLINE: There's a line for men and another for women outside this bakery that pumps out industrial quantities of bread. Each line has dozens of people, and the bread they're hoping to buy costs up to 10 times more than it did under the old Assad regime.
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HADID: The dinner-plate-size pieces of flatbread thump off a conveyor belt onto a table near the counter.
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HADID: One woman hands over money for 48 pieces. It's just a few days' supply for most Syrian families in a country where bread is the staple.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: There are scenes like this across Damascus. At another bakery, 35-year-old Rahaf, mother to eight, jokes to me that she's only alive because she's not dead.
RAHAF: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: Rahaf, like all the other Syrians I hear from, didn't want to give her full name. They fear reprisals because they're talking about a sensitive topic.
JOSHUA LANDIS: Those bread lines are telling you a story about Syria today, why this Assad government fell and the challenges that face this new regime.
HADID: Joshua Landis is a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma. He says bread is so politically sensitive in Syria that the Assad regime heavily subsidized it, but it often wasn't available. Landis says that's partly why Assad was toppled. And if this government can't resolve the bread crisis, it will become both a hunger crisis and a political one.
LANDIS: It's very hard for us to understand how most Syrians are surviving. They're just barely subsisting.
HADID: Like Noor. He's 21, but looks 12...
NOOR: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
NOOR: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: ...Thin, short, gaunt. He's dreamily chewing on a scrap of bread. "I'm just resting for a bit," he says.
NOOR: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: "I waited for an hour in line for this."
The bread lines and the prices are sensitive for the new regime. I see two men approach Noor.
NOOR: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: Later, he tells me they've told him not to talk. These bread lines have created their own industry. Poor folks buy up the bread and resell it by the roadside. Among them is 12-year-old Mohammad, whose back aches from standing in line all day.
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: He resells the bread to people like this 33-year-old single mother. She's got young kids at home, and she can't waste time standing in line.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: Despite the new hardship, she says this is better than the Assad regime which detained her husband. He never returned.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: (Speaking Syrian Arabic).
HADID: She says, "we're no longer living in fear."
She's got faith in this government. And over the weekend, Syrian officials announced that public-sector pay would increase by four times to help alleviate the current economic crisis. Analysts say there's a few reasons why the price of bread is increasing. As rebels seized Damascus, the Syrian currency tumbled, in turn pushing up prices. And Russia, which was a close ally of the former Assad regime, used to supply Syria's wheat flour. Now, the Reuters news agency says Moscow's halted supplies. But one country has offered help - Ukraine, another of the world's great wheat producers, which also happens to be fighting against Russia.
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HADID: In a recent visit to Damascus, Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, announced a gift of 500 tons of flour. He says more's on the way.
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ANDRII SYBIHA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
HADID: That may depend on the new Syrian government renouncing the former Assad regime's recognition of Russia's annexation of Ukrainian land.
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HADID: Outside the bakeries, people are impatient. We walk down one bread line...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: ...And one man tells us to stop recording. It's not clear who he is, but it can also be risky to ask.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: "OK, I'm done," I tell him.
A few feet away, a retired schoolteacher stops me. He tells me, "I've been waiting in this line for two hours." He says, "this regime told us it's bringing freedom, but we can't buy bread."
Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Damascus. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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