Sugar Shortage Darkens Tunisian Eid Festivities

Tunis, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Apr, 2024) In downtown Tunis, dozens of customers stand in a long queue snaking out of a supermarket to buy sugar, essential for the end of Ramadan celebrations eight days away.

The key ingredient for traditional sweets served to mark the end of the Muslim holy month is now being rationed to one to two kilogrammes per customer per week.

"I never thought that one day we would form a queue in Tunisia to buy sugar," said Lamia Bouraoui, 58.

Like other basic foodstuffs in Tunisia, sugar is subsidised by the state.

But the dearth of funds in the North African country's public coffers has made it and other culinary essentials like flour and semolina scarce since late 2022.

For the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, families throughout North Africa make copious amounts of sweets and pastries that often last for days.

Without enough sugar, "we are deprived this year of this pleasure," added Bouraoui.

Some, like Sami, 40, queue for sugar accompanied by family members to increase the rations his family can enjoy.

"One day we queue for flour, another for semolina and another for sugar," he said.

The shortage has also dealt a blow to bakeries.

"We rely on sugar in everything we do," Chokri Bouajila, a bakery worker in Tunis, told AFP.

"If we have sugar, we can work, otherwise we can't do anything."

Bouajila, who specialises in Tunisian traditional sweets, said customers have been buying less and less of his pastries.