Transport has been parallelized after protesters blocked roads and burned tires in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare on Monday, just two days after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a massive fuel price hike .
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.
“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.