“To be able to get bread I had to search half the city and stand for hours in front of the ovens — still even then I would often go back home empty-handed,” Ahmad al-Barro, a father of three from Qamishli, told Al-Monitor. Barro, like many others in northeast Syria who live in areas under the control of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, has struggled to provide for his family over the last month as the region has experienced a severe shortage of bread.

The crisis started in late December when owners of private bakeries went on a collective strike in protest of the increasing price of flour, closing their doors until the autonomous administration reduced the price of flour or allowed them to raise the price of bread.

What followed was a month of tense standoff, finally resolving Jan. 21 with the authorities agreeing to supply private bakeries with a weekly shipment of subsidized flour at the price of 30,000 Syrian pounds ($9.70, exchange rate on the black market) as opposed to the previous price of 43,000 pounds ($14) per 50-kilo (110-pound) bag of flour. The deal is a sweet relief for the residents of northeast Syria, who, in the midst of a severe economic crisis, are more reliant on bread than ever for sustenance.

Despite the first shipment of flour reaching bakeries Feb. 1 and private bakeries resuming production, tensions remain high as bakery owners and the autonomous administration eye each other warily. “We have just enough flour for a week; if the autonomous administration breaches its promise, we will resume strikes,” the owner of a private bakery in Qamishli told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.