The town of al-Janudiyah in Jisr al-Shugur, rural Idlib, lost one of its key bakeries due to the Russian air force’s missile raids, which destroyed the bakery that offers its service to about 50 thousand persons.
On Sunday, January 20, at down, the Russian aircraft targeted the bakery and destroyed it totally, while caused the injury of a few of its worker. This deprived the area’s people of bread, a basic commodity. The incident triggered a crisis in the area.
The bakery used to relatively offer its services to about 50 thousand people, the majority of whom are internally displaced persons and camps’ residents. The destruction of the bakery has rendered about 20 persons unemployed, according to Ahmad Lulu, the official of the “Ataa for Humanitarian Relief.”
Lulu told Enab Baladi that the bakery being out of service will cause a major humanitarian crisis to the area’s people, particularly to internally displaced person, given the lack of a substitute in an area where all the service facilities are continuedly bombarded.
The bakery is located in the northern rural parts of Jisr al-Shugur, serving about 20 villages, administratively affiliated to the al-Janudiyah district.
With support from the local councils, it provides funded bread in return for 125 Syrian pounds per bundle.
Lulu pointed out that the closest two bakeries are located in the Zarzour and Hamameh towns, and both are out of service due to funding cuts.
The production capacity of the al-Janudiyah bakery is estimated with four tons of flour, the equivalent to 4400 bread bundles a day.
In an interview with Enab Baladi, Mustafa Jamil Haj Yousef, the director of the al-Janudiyah Town’s Local Council, said that the bakery’s importance aroused from its ability to offer one of life’s basic commodities for half its price as a service to the people.
| Prices of one kilogram of bread in all opposition areas in the north of Syria range from 150 to 250 liras, while the bakeries set different weights of one pack of bread, ranging from 850 to 950 grams. |
“That the bakery is out of service, there will be a humanitarian crisis in the area, for the bakery used to provide its services to a large number of poor and displaced people. And there is not an alternative since the closest bakery is 52 kilometers away, in the village of Mashmashan,” he added.
The bakery is not affiliated to any military body and there are not military posts near it, which indicates the Russian aircraft’s intentional targeting of vital and service facilities in the area, according to Haj Yousef.
On Sunday, January 20, the Russian aircraft targeted the vicinity of the city of Jisr al-Shugur, western rural Idlib, which led to the death of a man and a woman, the injury of others and the destruction of houses and facilities, according to the “Syrian Civil Defense.”
The shelling is undertaken while the “Sochi” deal is yet active, signed by Turkey and Russia last September, providing for the construction of a buffer zone between the opposition and the regime’s areas and a total ceasefire.
The artillery and missile shelling on the part of the Assad’s forces did not stop in Idlib governorate, though the opposition factions have declared their commitment to the terms of the “Sochi” deal, on top of which is the withdrawal of heavy arms from the buffer zone.