Social media pages loyal to the Assad regime circulated on Tuesday an image of a decision issued by the National Defense Forces (NDF) militia general secretariat to reduce salaries of fighters, sparking anger among its members and supporters.
According to the text of the decision issued on Sunday, the militia leadership decided to decrease the salary of “fixed fighters” and “the administrative units” to 15,000 Syrian pounds, and “special operations” fighters to 40,000 pounds, while depriving “units of fighters from various ranks” of salaries, including “state employees,” while also reducing the salary of “military and civilian retirees” by half.
Fighters and militia loyalists expressed their resentment at the decision online, with the “Sowt al-Zahara” Facebook page protesting the decision, asking: “Is this amount enough for one person in his place of work? So what about those with families?”
A regime supporter wrote, commenting on the decision: “They want to drive people out and drive us mad. The official who came out with this decision definitely has a salary of 10 million pounds, damnit. Isn’t it enough that the wife of a martyr and her children in the NDF are dying of hunger and living off the goodwill of others? Enough is enough. God help the people and protect the orphans and mothers.”
Another commented, saying: “Great, our salaries are 15,000. This is the first time I’ve heard about salaries going down. I’ve been in the NDF for four years, and I’ve been wounded twice. And now the compensation they’re giving us, that and the 15,000, I put down just on travel and cigarettes. How are we supposed to live? I don’t know. We keep on fighting and if we leave, they say they we abandoned the country and make us out to be traitors. We’re seriously fed up.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
