Harare - A food riot broke out early on Monday in the eastern Zimbabwean city of Mutare, police said, one week after three days of riots over skyrocketting prices shook the capital Harare.
Protesters in the township of Sakubva, about eight kilometres from Mutare's city centre, blocked roads leading to town to protest rising public transport fares and escalating food prices, police and residents said.
A police officer speaking by telephone from Mutare said the protest began at around 7am but police quickly broke it up. The situation was calm and the roadblocks were removed within hours.
The state-run ZIANA news agency said 20 people were arrested after rioters looted 160 loaves of bread from a supermarket and set fire to the store's parcel bay.
The police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not confirm the report or say whether any injuries were reported during the riot outside Mutare, about 200 kilometres southeast of Harare.
Bread and sugar prices rose an average of 30 percent two weeks ago, and the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has called for a bread boycott and urged Zimbabweans to eat alternate foods such as yams.
Protesters also stoned some passing cars early in the morning, but by 9 am police had brought the situation under control, said Andy McKay, a Mutare resident who had monitored the situation.
Mutare is one of only two cities outside Harare where riots have broken out over the rising cost of living in Zimbabwe, where inflation is running at more than 60 percent.
Some 117 people were arrested during three days of riots in Harare's townships, which police and soldiers crushed with teargas and beatings.
At least 50 shops were looted while several vehicles were burned or damaged in the rioting that rocked the poor working-class suburbs of the capital.
Another 15 people were arrested in the central town of Recliff, about 200 kilometres southwest of the capital. - Sapa-AFP