Monthly highlights, May

📌 Increasing popular protests
Protests against the Damascus government are spreading in different regions, from Raqqa to Damascus, Deir Ezzor and Aleppo. Two main sectors are raising their voice denouncing economical hardships, on one side farmers that are struggling with the wheat prices set by the Damascus government, much lower than other years, especially if compared with the price the Autonomous Administration used to buy it for. Farmers protests denounced that with the lower prices they can't even cover the costs. Another sector leading protests are the oil workers, since the Damascus goverment is taking control of many oil fields and excluding many oilfield workers that depended on it for survival. At the same time, protests of SDF families demanding the liberation of prisoners continue, since many SDF fighters still remain in prisons.

📌 Floods on the Eufrates river
After many years of water scarcity, with Turkey keeping dams closed to diminish the water flow into Syria, massive amounts of water were let to flow in to the euphrates river. It caused floods in many regions, especially in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. Bridges have been destroyed, many riverside areas remain under water, with houses, orchards and farmland under water. This comes at the time of the wheat harvest season, with many farmers losing their crops that were recently harvested but still on the fields.

📌 Parliament "elections" in northern Syria
While most of Syria voted for the People’s Assembly last October, at that time NES was still under DAANES control. The North East incl. Kobani, Haseke and Qamishlo only voted now on the 24th of may. The vote was for the last 11 seats in the parliament, with a very restricted voting method. The number of voters were highly restricted, with less than 200 people allowed to vote in the different cities. A majority of arab representatives were elected, followed by several kurds from ENKS. PYD representatives denounced the elections as "undemocratic".

📌 Transport over Syria increase
Partly due to the war tensions with Iran, many air traffic is being redirected over middle east. That comes at a time where Turkey and other countries are reactivating their flights to Syria, that is experiencing an increasing number of flights in their airports. Road traffic is also increassing, with the first international transit convoy that entered Syria from Turkey (in Tal Abyad/Gire Spi) heading to Iraq via the al-Yarubiyah Border Crossing.

📌 Kurdish language national day
May 15th is Kurdish language day. his year particularly the day draws attention to the legal right to Kurdish language education in the constitution and laws of the new government. While al-Sharaa did sign a presidential decree guaranteeing Kurdish cultural and language rights, most Kurdish people have little trust in this. Kurdish has been was banned in Syria for decades, and is threatening to become only single subject in school (everything else being taught in Arabic), instead of a whole curriculum being taught in Kurdish. Therefor advocating for and celebrating the Kurdish language is ever so relevant today.