Food prices trigger second day of Mogadishu riots

By Abdi Sheikh and Abdi Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Angry Mogadishu residents protested for a second day on Tuesday against food traders who rejected old currency notes, blocking roads and stoning cars.

Witnesses said at least one storekeeper was stabbed by protesters after one demonstrator was shot and killed on Monday.

"I'm hungry and yet cannot even buy food," Abdifatah Hussein, 25, told Reuters, clutching a bunch of Somali shillings. "I fear we might start eating one another. We will never stop protesting until traders accept the notes."

Police commissioner Abdi Hassan Awale Qaybdiid said Islamist militants from the al Shabaab group had infiltrated the protests on Monday and killed "several civilians".

But there was no independent confirmation of his report, and the insurgents could not immediately be reached for comment.

Many shopkeepers have rejected the old notes, which are still legal currency, saying wholesale traders and currency traders will not take them. Most of them are demanding dollars, or newer Somali shillings.

Somalia's shilling is valued at about 34,000 to the dollar, and many blame a fall in value of nearly 150 percent over the past year on counterfeiters who mint the notes and then exchange them for dollars.

That has ramped up inflation already triggered by rising food prices. Though agriculturally fertile, Somalia's violence and anarchy makes it largely dependent on food imports.