Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Mogadishu riots over food prices

Police have fired in the air to disperse thousands of people protesting over rising food prices in the streets of Mogadishu, the main city in Somalia.

More than 10,000 people gathered in the southern neighbourhood of Madina on Tuesday and marched towards the main Bakara trading district, where rally leaders addressed the crowd, an AFP correspondent said. No casualties were immediately reported, but on Monday two people were killed in protests, witnesses said. The crowd briefly dispersed after the firing.

"This is the worst problem facing the planet. Nobody cares about civilians and traders are harming us even more than Somalia's armed enemies now," Sheikh Mohamoud Abdulle, a Muslim leader, told the crowd. "We can no longer ignore what is happening and we must respond to the best of our ability."

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