Zimbabwean protesters burn tires, block roads over fuel price hike

Protesters barricaded roads and burned tires 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.

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.

Mnangagwa’s announcement of a 150 percent increase in fuel prices was greeted with shock in Zimbabwe where unemployment is over 80 percent. The government sets fuel prices via the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Agency.

Residents of Epworth, 36 km (22 miles) south of the capital, protested after the main labor federation called for a three-day strike starting on Monday in response to the price increase.

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“The main roads to town have been barricaded with rocks and there is no public transport carrying people,” Phibeon Machona, a 27-year-old Epworth resident told Reuters over the phone.

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.