In central Tunis, dozens of consumers line up in an extended line to walk out of a grocery store to purchase sugar, important for the top of Ramadan in eight days.
The important thing ingredient for conventional sweets served to mark the top of the Muslim holy month is now rationed to at least one to 2 kilos per buyer per week.
“I by no means thought that someday we might be queuing in Tunisia to purchase sugar,” says Lamia Bouraoui, 58.
Like different staple meals in Tunisia, sugar is sponsored by the state.
However because of the lack of economic assets within the North African nation’s public coffers, these meals and different culinary necessities akin to flour and semolina have turn out to be scarce for the reason that finish of 2022.
For the Eid al-Fitr vacation that marks the top of Ramadan, households throughout North Africa make massive portions of sweets and pastries that usually final for days.
With out sufficient sugar, “we now have been disadvantaged of this pleasure this 12 months,” Bouraoui added.
Some, like Sami, 40, queue for sugar, accompanied by kinfolk, to extend the rations his household can get pleasure from.
“In the future we’re queuing for flour, the subsequent for semolina and the subsequent for sugar,” he stated.
The scarcity has additionally dealt a blow to bakeries.
“We rely on sugar in every thing we do,” Chokri Bouajila, a bakery employee in Tunis, instructed AFP.
“If we now have sugar we will work, in any other case we will do nothing.”
Bouajila, who makes a speciality of conventional Tunisian sweets, says clients are shopping for fewer and fewer pastries from him.
-‘Bitter espresso’-
In recent times, Tunisians have seen their buying energy decline sharply resulting from inflation, a recession and rising unemployment.
The nation of 12 million inhabitants is battling money owed value about 80 p.c of its whole financial output, and inflation averaging eight to 10 p.c per 12 months.
It’s estimated that one third of the inhabitants lives beneath the poverty line.
The queue on the buying middle is simply getting longer.
“I have been right here for the final 35 minutes,” stated Hassna, 40, one other buyer queuing for sugar.
‘Why do we now have to undergo all this? How did we get right here?’
“Let’s thank God,” stated a person standing close to her, “we’re in a greater state of affairs than our brothers in Gaza who’re dying of starvation.”
Nonetheless, others are hoping to benefit from the nation’s newest problem.
Nayla, a consumer strolling by means of the mall, stated she would somewhat change her habits than wait in line for sugar, mentioning that it was positively not the healthiest ingredient.
“Bitter espresso does not trouble me anymore,” she stated.
