July 4. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Bus drivers brought the Mozambican capital Maputo to a standstill on Monday in protests against the record fuel price rise recently announced by the government.
The drivers demand that they be allowed to increase transport fares, as explained by one of the protesters, quoted by the public newspaper ‘Jornal de Notícias’. Diesel rose 11 percent and gasoline 4.4 percent on July 2.
The authorities have sent the Police to the bus stations of the capital and the neighboring city of Matola to contain the protests, as reported by the Center for Democracy and Development in a statement collected by the Bloomberg news agency. The agents have used tear gas to disperse the pickets that were blocking one of the bus stations, according to this source.
Mozambique has experienced relative social calm since the 2010 protests, when six people were killed in a bread riot over rising prices. Since then most of the demonstrations have been frustrated by the authorities.
This former Portuguese colony imports almost all of the cereals it consumes and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused inflation to worsen. Prices have grown 9.3 percent in May, the highest figure in five years.
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