UN News/Daniel Johnson      In Tunis, Tunisia, a female shopper complains about the lack of sugar in the country.

September 30, 2022   Economic Development

For many Tunisians, shortages of essential foods, fuel and key farming products linked to the war in Ukraine, have tested them to the limit, they’ve been telling UN News.

“There is no sugar, I have to take a taxi very far away to buy one kilogramme of sugar,” one woman explains in frustration, at a market in Kairouan, a town several hours drive south of the capital, Tunis.

“The prices are going up! Poor people can no longer afford anything. It is like the world is on fire,” another woman explains, as she opens her purse to pay for a bagful of tomatoes, jumbled together on a wooden cart by the side of the road.

Surprise appeal

Nodding his head in agreement, the stallholder takes her money and makes an astonishing, if discreet, appeal. “Please, make it easier for us to migrate across the sea, so we can leave,” he says.

Although the elderly customer scoffs at the idea – “He wants to drown! He wants to drown!” – for many younger Tunisians, leaving the country in search of work and security is a frequent topic of conversation.

This is despite the fact that many thousands of people have died trying to cross the Central Mediterranean Sea from North African nations to Europe on unsafe boats in recent years, and regular TV news reports that announce yet another missing person - or family - at sea.

Migration pressures

“I think what the crisis in Ukraine has brought up again, is the hard choices that people have to make on a daily basis, because people forced to flee their homes, people forced to flee their country, are not taking that decision lightly,” says Safa Msehli, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

For many Tunisians, it remains a challenge to source basic staples, although more than 85,000 metric tonnes of Ukrainian wheat have arrived in Tunisian ports in the two months since the Black Sea Grain Initiative kicked into action, its Joint Coordination Centre in Odesa, said on Thursday.

The agreement was described as a “beacon of hope” by UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the signing ceremony for the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 27 July in Istanbul, with representatives from Russian and Ukraine.

Since 1 August, 240 vessels have sailed from Ukrainian ports with some 5.4 million metric tons of grain and other foodstuffs.

Spreading the load

At an enormous mill in the Tunisian capital, there’s an abundance of flour, as workers stand under a conveyor belt which transports an apparently endless supply of semolina, packaged up into large, heavy-duty plastic sacks.

As the bags start to fall, the men grab them in turns and load them into a large flat-bed lorry until it is full, their faces covered in fine white flour.

The scene is industrious, but the mill is not nearly as busy as it should be, thanks in no small part to the impact of the Ukraine conflict on cutting grain exports from Black Sea, and its role in accentuating existing economic uncertainty.

“Now, we are not in crisis, the crisis is always happening,” says Redissi Radhouane, the chief mill operator at La Compagnie Tunisienne de Semoulerie. “When we look for the wheat, we don’t find any. The wheat is not abundant like before.”

‘It’s like hunting without bullets’

At a wholesaler’s outlet in Mornag, a town on the outskirts of Tunis, customer Samia Zwabi knows all about the shortages and rising prices.

She explains to UN News that she has to borrow money or buy goods on credit for her grocery store, assuming she can find them in the first place. Like many parents, the fact that it’s the start of the school year is an additional concern.

Half capacity

“We are working at half capacity,” says Samia Zwabi, who reels off a wishlist that includes milk, sugar, cooking oil and fruit juice. “When a client comes, he can’t get all the basics. Clients ask for something I don’t have. We have no options. We need to be able to work to feed our kids.”

Echoing that message, wholesaler Walid Khalfawi’s main headache is the lack of available cooking oil, as his bare storerooms indicate. Another growing worry is the number of customers who pay on credit, he tells us, as he waves a thick wad of handwritten IOU chits.

“If a grocery owner comes here for cooking oil and finds it, he’ll automatically buy pasta, tomatoes, couscous and other products,” says the married father-of-three. “If he doesn’t find it, he won’t buy anything…It’s like going into the forest to hunt with your rifle but you have no bullets. What can you do?”

Sole breadwinner

From her modest single-storey home in the city of Kairouan, Najwa Selmi supports her family making traditional handmade bread patties known as “tabouna”, twice in the morning and once in the evening.

The process is laborious and time-consuming, a batch of eight flat rolls taking around 15 minutes to knock into shape from semolina flour, water, yeast and a drop of olive oil.

Once prepared, Najwa wets the surface of the soft patties and slaps them into the inside of a concrete oven that’s been stoked with firewood outside. She grimaces in pain as she removes them with her scorched hands, once she’s satisfied that they’re cooked.

The bread is delicious and Najwa has loyal customers, but it is not easy getting hold of a regular supply of flour, she tells us.