Reports | 25 05 2020
Under the huge economic crisis Syria is suffering, many Syrians approached new means to generate income.So many means have become a source of livelihood for some people, or a support for a collapsed salary.However, some Syrian citizens have chosenmeans that they would have never consider before, and with its “black” nature it has changed the concept of earning for some.
An Employee Becomes a Door-to-Door Salesman
Although he is a public-sector employee,Abu Hazem from Damascus, 37, introduced himself to a nearby clothes store, and started considering the potential of relying on this store for a simple trade business as a “door-to-door sales”.
“The salary barely last for five days” Abu Hazem says, “I have five children, so Ihad to look for another source of income.”
“Cheap goods of relatively good quality are very popular nowadays, so I thought that I can sell such goods at my workplace, on individual basis.” He adds.
One of his colleagues asked him for a “jeans pants” from the same store near his house, which opened the door for other colleagues to make similar orders, the man would bring for little margin of profit he adds to the original price.
That’s how Abu Hazem managed to make about 30 thousand Syrian pounds in one month. Profit has doubled after a couple of months, and this business made a stable income for him, so he recruited his wife too to sell women accessories to her neighbors at home, and she made some good income.
Bureaucracy Middlemen Earn the Most During War
An additional 40,000 SYP on the original cost, enabled Mahmoud, 29, from Aleppo, to get passports within four hours, instead of waiting for two days with all the burden entailed to acquire the required documents.
You can find many people around the Department of Immigration and Passports in Damascus, whose work is facilitating the procedures” Abu Mahm says “Imanaged to contact one of them, who facilitated the transactions of getting passports for me and my family in four hours, for additional 40 thousand SYP on the cost. I agreed to pay under the condition that no money will be paid before I receive the passports, and that’s exactly what happened.
So many lawyers have become bureaucracy middlemen nowadays, making use of their good relationships with employees in governmental departmen relevant to their work in Damascus. Therefore, they facilitated the transactions of people, for certain fees that the lawyer and the employee agree on.This fee used to be called a “bribe” before, but now it is perceived as a necessity.
Millions of Syrians are abroad, and tens of thousands are leaving the country every day and they all need official documents,” one lawyer says. “This has become a profitable business”.
“Black” Ways to Earn Money
The trade of arms, weed and even human organs, as the most prominent kinds of the black trade in Syria, has become so popular with big markets in Syria.
Abu Sham, 34, a dealer from Hama says: “Frankly, the weed trade depends mainly on Lebanon, especially under thecurrent state of lawlessness. There is no accountability as before and we can give some officials weed as a bribe to facilitate the passage of whatever amount we want to sell in markets.”
Costs of one Kilogram of the different kinds of weed are not fixed, however Abu Sham, the weed dealer, told Rozana that one-kilogram costs about 1500 USD.
As for arms, many Syrians don’t deny the proliferation of arms trade after 2013. Some people accuse “Assad’s officers” of promoting such trade.
Muhammad, a storeowner from Lattakiacountryside says that the pump-action rifles were the bestselling weapons in the markets. “I personally bought one for 13 thousand SYP three years ago.” he explained, “I cannot deny that I bought it from an officer in the army. He sold dozens of it to others, and it became a flourishing business for him. However, it is a business of spreading weapons among people which means spreading death”.
The price of that same rifle has reached 50 thousand SYP, while machineguns were sold for about 100 to 200 thousand SYP.
Kidnapping and Human Organs Trafficking
Kidnapping for ransom became widespread in Hama and the Syrian coast. Many families whose members were kidnapped, discovered that the kidnappers are “close to the regime circles”, while ransoms reached up to 10 million SYP and sometimes even more. However, in some cases kidnapping goes beyond ransom. Kidnapped victims got killed and their organs were sold in the black market.
Rawad, 42, is a Syrian doctor living in Lebanon. He says that “kidneys and corneas are demanded the most by organ brokers. Their price goes as high as 50 thousand USD”.
At a later stage, corpses of Syrians were discovered in the north of the country. It is believed that organ traders killed them and sold their organs, “it is evident through the primitive stiches on the abdomen of the victims”.