Lacking Money, Experience, Rebels Try To Run Syrian Town Plagued By Water, Power Shortages
KARIN LAUB
Associated Press
5:30 p.m. EST, December 16, 2012
MAARET MISREEN, Syria (AP) — The anti-regime locals who have thrown together a ramshackle administration to run this northern Syrian town have one main struggle: Finding money to keep their community alive. Like other nearby rebel-held towns, Maaret Misreen is broke.
Many of the town's 45,000 residents are out of work. There's no cash to keep water or electricity running, so they come on only sporadically. Prices have skyrocketed. Long lines form at the only working bakery for miles around, creating vulnerable potential targets for airstrikes.
This week, the town's main mosque preacher, Abdel Rahim Attoun — who now doubles as the town judge — appealed to worshippers to chip in to buy fuel for communal water pumps. He asked each family to donate 200 Syrian pounds, a little under $3, the cost of a large bunch of bananas.
But even that's too much for many residents, so no one is being forced to donate, said 29-year-old Amer Ahmado, who is an electronics engineer but was picked by the newly formed local council for the job of managing the town's meager finances.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-ml-syria-rebel-town-20121216,0,4400228.story
