Youths run riot over high prices

2008-05-06 11:04

Mogadishu, Somalia - Hundreds of youths in Somalia's capital lobbed stones at shops and cars and set tires ablaze in the streets on Tuesday in a second day of violence over soaring food prices.

Besides rising prices, the protests have been driven by shopkeepers' refusal to accept some bank notes, apparently out of concern that so many bills are counterfeit. On Tuesday, shop owners met and agreed to begin accepting the notes again.

Tuesday's unrest was not as widespread as a day earlier when tens of thousands took to the streets in rioting that spread to all 13 districts of the capital. Troops fired into the crowds on Monday, killing two people.

On Tuesday, protests were confined to the city's Dharkenley and Wadajir neighbourhoods. But shops across the city remained shuttered, with traders fearing the riot could spread and prompt looting.

"Down with those printing the fake money!" the young men yelled, denouncing the growing number of counterfeiters who have contributed to escalating prices. "Down with opportunists!"

The Mogadishu Traders' Union said it decided on Tuesday to again accept the old 18 000-shilling notes and ordered its private security units to enforce that at the city's main Bakara market.

"We, the big traders, have already decided to accept the old note and today we want to tell other businesses also to accept the decision," said Abas Mohamed Duale, deputy chairperson of the union.

Protests and riots over rising food prices have recently hit other nations, including Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. The price of rice and other staples has risen more than 40% since mid-2007.

Africa particularly hard-hit

The Asian Development Bank said on Monday that a billion poor people in Asia need food aid to help cope with the skyrocketing prices.

Soaring fuel prices, growing demand from the burgeoning middle classes in India and China and poor weather have contributed to the jump in food prices worldwide. Africa has been particularly hard-hit.

In Mogadishu, the price of corn meal has more than doubled since January. Rice has risen during the same period from $26 to US$47.50 for a 50kg sack.

The cost of food has also been driven up by the plummeting Somali shilling, which has lost nearly half its value against the US dollar this year because of growing insecurity and a market clogged with millions of counterfeit notes. The shilling has tumbled from about 17 000 per US dollar to about 30 000.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said on Monday that he planned to create a new currency in a bid to fight against counterfeiters who helped spark massive inflation in the country.

Ahmed - speaking in Paris, where he met with top French officials - did not directly respond to a question about the current situation in the Somali capital, saying only "the country has been in chaos, in anarchy for a long time".

He said counterfeiters have long flourished in the lawless country flooding it with "an incalculable number of fake bills".

"That led us to the kinds of financial and economic problems we're seeing," Ahmed said. "But today we are determined to fight that and to create ... a new currency."

- AP