Protests erupt in Zimbabwe over fuel price hikes

Protesters barricaded roads and burned tyres in a suburb of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare on Monday, two days after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a massive fuel price hike in an effort to stem a deepening economic crisis.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday announced a more than 100 percent rise in the price of petrol and diesel in a move to improve supplies as the country struggles with its worst fuel shortages in a decade. In Zimbabwe, unemployment is over 80 percent. The government sets fuel prices via the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Agency.

Cash shortages have plunged Zimbabwe’s economy into disarray, threatening widespread social unrest and undermining Mnangagwa’s efforts to win back foreign investors sidelined under his predecessor Robert Mugabe.

Residents in Epworth, a poor suburb east of the capital Harare, on Monday, woke up to find boulders blocking roads leading to the city centre.

"Roads are blocked with huge stones and there are angry people preventing commuter buses from carrying passengers. People are just stranded," agencies reported.

In the city of Bulawayo, demonstrators attacked minibuses heading to the city centre and used burning tyres and stones to block the main routes into town while some schools were turning away pupils fearing for their safety.

"We want Mnangagwa to know our displeasure in his failure," said an angry Mthandazo Moyo, aged 22.

Police fired teargas to disperse youths protesting outside the high court in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo, according to video footage from the Centre For Innovation & Technology, a local news service.

Riot police in trucks patrolled downtown Harare while some shops remained closed.

Early on Monday Mnangagwa set off on a five-nation tour which starts in Russia and ends at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Petrol prices rose from $1.24 a litre to $3.31 (2.89 euros), with diesel up from $1.36 a litre to $3.11 starting Sunday.

The main labour alliance, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said the government had shown a clear lack of empathy for the already overburdened poor.