Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, Iraq has faced severe food shortages. In just a week, the price of flour and sunflower oil in the country increased several times.
Driven to despair, people took to the streets on Wednesday. More than 500 people gathered in the central square of the city of Nasiriya, which in 2019 became the center of anti-corruption protests.
“Rising prices are suffocating us. This applies to bread and any other food. We are barely making ends meet,” Al Jazeera quotes protester Hassan Kazem as saying.
On Tuesday, the government unveiled measures to support the population, which include a $70 monthly pension supplement and a similar increase in the salaries of civil servants. In addition, all customs duties on imports of food, consumer goods and building materials were canceled for two months.
“Problems in Ukraine have led to a global crisis because it is one of the largest exporters of sunflower oil,” said Trade Ministry spokesman Muhammad Khanoun.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry detained 31 merchants for artificially inflating food prices.
Russia and Ukraine are major world food exporters. And the Middle East is heavily dependent on purchases from these countries.
bbabo.Net