Riots in Mozambique Over Rising Food Prices

South Africa  |  09.03.10   By PoliticsAfrica Staff

Violent protests over high food prices in Mozambique has led to the death of at least seven people since demonstrations began on Wednesday.

Shops were looted, cars set on fire and roads barricaded on Thursday, while troops attempted to clean up streets and restore order in Maputo, the impoverished nation’s capital.

Witnesses said police opened fire on protesters in a poor suburb of the city, but there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

According to local television, one person drowned on Thursday after falling in a pond while escaping police.

‘Irreversible’ price hikes

“There was heavy human and material damage and other damages, namely … 288 wounded, 23 commercial outlets damaged and looted, 12 buses vandalised, of which one completely destroyed, and two train carriages,” Alberto Nkutumula, a government spokesman, said.

He added that hikes in food prices, which sparked the demonstrations, were “irreversible.”

Thousands of people have been angered by a 30 percent increase in the price of bread and higher electricity and water tariffs.

The higher living costs are due in part to soaring wheat prices around the world due to severe drought in Russia and eastern Europe.

Mozambique is also heavily dependent on imports from South Africa, which have become more expensive in recent months as the South African rand currency has strengthened.

Several of the protesters told reporters they opted to join the protests because the hikes would make life even more difficult.

Unemployment in the southern African nation stands at 54 percent, according to the government.

Mozambicans saw the price of a loaf of bread rise 25 percent in the past year — from about four to five U.S. cents.

The increases have had a dramatic impact in a nation where more than half the population lives in poverty.

Mozambique ranks 175th out of 179 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index, a measure that takes into account health and education levels as well as income.

Per capita income in the southeastern African country is just $802, compared to $9,757 in South Africa, where many Mozambicans have fled in search of work.

The trouble started Wednesday when protesters, most of them young men, were marching peacefully but then began throwing stones, burning tires and looting shops.

Police opened fire, and tourists and business people were trapped in their hotels or at the airport as mobs cut off the airport road.

The government has urged calm, saying it can do little about the high prices, which were sparked by a drop in the value of the import-dependent nation’s currency.

It pointed out that Mozambique grows only 30 percent of the wheat it needs 

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