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“We have reduced our food purchases and live on sandwiches” technician Sadiq al-Baqir tells The Media Line.

Others who were able to make ends during the cold winter months now lament they have nothing left to draw from. “I haven’t worked in months and can’t buy what we need,” says 34 year old driver Farid Atrash. “We borrowed for a while but the prices are too high.

Some complain that higher food prices are only part of the problem. The real dilemma lies in the skyrocketing cost of fuel. A liter of cooking oil, known locally as mazut, has gone up by more than 200%. “Everything is so expensive,” grumbles 39 year old handyman Muhammad Qardi. “We have nothing to feed the babies.”

Infants have suffered beyond their years. Baby formula supplied by the state no longer reaches rebel controlled areas with any consistency. Even when it does, its high costs and lack of sanitary conditions make it prohibitive to purchase.

“Syrian women do not breast feed,” Dr. Badr Salibi, a 45 year old internist tells The Media Line.

“They are having problems shifting to this procedure. Some don’t have the food they need to produce high quality milk. Others are too frightened by the war. As a result, without clean formula, the babies will soon die.”

Many here have become homeless. In provinces such as Idlib, internally displaced persons account for more than 40% of the population according to the United Nations. In Aleppo, more than half of the buildings have been destroyed. In the neighborhood of Bustan al-Basha, rows of edifices have been reduced to rubble. Clothes float in a ruddy pool of water that has consumed the staircase of an apartment. No one lives in these unlivable structures. When the quarter was transformed into a front line between regime soldiers and the rebels, residents fled.