By Charles Mangwiro
MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambique's government will reverse a bread price increase after food riots in which 13 people were killed last week, the planning minister said on Tuesday.
The 30 percent 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," Planning and Development Minister Aiuba Cuereneia told reporters.
President Armando Guebuza's government previously said it was helpless because of the spike in wheat prices linked partly to drought and fires in Russia.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Oliver De Schutter, warned on Tuesday that the Mozambique riots should be a wake-up call for governments which had ignored food security problems which arose two years ago.
Police fired rubber bullets, live ammunition and teargas during the three days of protests over the bread price hikes and increases in water and electricity tariffs in Mozambique last week. Among the dead were two children.
The government-imposed price rise took the cost of a bread roll -- the bread staple of Mozambicans -- to 20 U.S. cents in a country where the average worker earns around $37 a month.
Mozambique also depends heavily on imports from South Africa which have become more expensive as the South African currency rose. Mozambique's metical has lost around 29 percent against the dollar and 33 percent against the rand this year.
Reuters Africa
