Bread price rise reversed after riots in Mozambique

A bread price increase will be reversed after food riots in which 13 people were killed last week, Mozambique's Planning Minister said yesterday.

The 30 per cent rise in the price of bread, due to soaring global wheat prices, sparked the worst riots since 2008 in the southern-African country, one of the world's poorest.

"The government has agreed to keep the old price of bread and the costs would be met by subsidies," Aiuba Cuereneia said.

President Armando Guebuza's government previously said it was helpless because of the spike in wheat prices linked partly to a drought in Russia.