ALEPPO, SYRIA // Even though he has little to offer, Kamal Sabsabi opens his small shop in rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo every day.
The shelves are mostly bare and gathering dust. Boxes of pesticide and tissues, a couple of battered tubes of toothpaste, stacks of plastic cups, sachets of spices and square bricks of the fragrant olive oil-based soap Aleppo was once famous for are among what is left. With eastern Aleppo completely cut off from the world by a brutal siege and food stocks dwindling, the few plastic bags of rice are the only wares likely to interest customers.
"People get sick of entering stores as they see no change in the stock," said Mr Sabsabi, 34. "Sometimes I sit for hours without selling what I have left here. I just sit with my neighbours, talking about how we got to this catastrophic situation, talking about death, talking about survival."
Over the past five and a half years, the 275,000 or so civilians now left trapped in eastern Aleppo have survived snipers, aerial bombardment, artillery strikes, pitched street battles and abductions at checkpoints in the city. Now, completely surrounded and with bombs killing people every day after a breakdown in diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire, many increasingly fear that hunger may be their ultimate downfall.
With no supplies coming in, the price of basic goods has shot up dramatically. Families are reducing their portions, hoping to eke out their simple meals. Aid groups distribute rations to the most vulnerable, but United Nations agencies are warning that food stocks put in place ahead of the siege will be exhausted by November.
Prices of many staples have doubled, quadrupled or even increased five-fold. A bag of rice that once sold for US$0.50 (Dh1.83) now sells for $1 or $1.50. Meat has gone from $5 a kilo to $20 a kilo. Flour has risen from $0.15 to $1 a kilo, but is increasingly hard to find. Powdered milk, the only kind available, is nearly impossible to come by and now costs $5 instead of $1 per kilo.
Refrigerating food is difficult because the only power supply available - from privately owned neighbourhood generator sets - is becoming increasingly expensive.
The few hard-to-find luxuries available cost much more. Cigarettes went from as little as $0.40 a pack to $15. Coffee costs $20 a kilo, but it has been a long time since many have had a caffeine fix.
Mr Sabsabi said he sells only small amounts of what he has left to prevent profiteers buying in bulk and reselling at higher prices.
With so little to sell, most other shopkeepers in his neighbourhood do not even bother to open, but Mr Sabsabi perseveres. He waits for customers outside his storefront - its windows long since blown out by war - chatting with friends until the whine of jets sends him running inside.
Being a grocer has not isolated Mr Sabsabi from the food crisis. He has a family of five to support and waits up to two hours a day every day at a food distribution centre for bread, though even that will almost certainly run out if the siege continues.
Eastern Aleppo first came under siege in late July, but it was broken by rebel forces in early August. However, the new route into the city was dangerous and getting supplies in proved difficult. When the government reimposed the siege in early September, eastern Aleppo was not prepared.
Just getting to markets is difficult and dangerous.
"The intensified air strikes have devastated markets and infrastructures," said Marwa Awad, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme in Damascus. "Getting food has become a daily challenge for the majority of the population, where many households have to walk at least two kilometres to reach an active market."
Some residents have turned to growing vegetables on balconies and on empty stretches of land. But the yield is limited and larger gardens out in the open are at risk from snipers, shelling and bombing.
For now, the citizens of eastern Aleppo can only hope for the best.
Jamil, 47, lives in the besieged area with his two sons. Air strikes frequently make it too dangerous to venture into the street and he has little money. He eats no more than two simple meals a day, usually rice and lentils.
"It's all just about filling our stomach for the next day so we don't feel hunger and desire for other types of food," he said.
He has little faith that more food will reach the city.
"All the political solutions are off. The parties are fighting furiously and the donors are supplying them with arms and ammunition to leave us in everlasting fighting until we finish each other and get even more exhausted than we already are," he said.
"I don't feel sorry for myself or the old people here, we had enough life. But for them, the kids, they don't have to suffer like this. It's their right to live their childhood like other children across the world, but they are suffering, yearning for their basic needs."
jwood@thenational.ae
* Josh Wood reported from Beirut
Bare shelves and rising prices in besieged eastern Aleppo
Shopkeeper Kamal Sabsabi opens every day but has little of what residents of the war-battered Syrian city really want - food.
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