Empty shelves or unaffordable food: Tunisia's crisis deepens

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisians have been hit with soaring food prices and shortages of basic staples in recent weeks, threatening to turn simmering discontent in the North African country — the cradle of the Arab Spring protests — into larger turmoil.

Sugar, vegetable oil, rice and even bottled water periodically disappear from supermarkets and grocery stores. People stand in line for hours for these food essentials that have long been subsidized and are now increasingly available in rations only. When they do appear on the shelves, many people cannot afford to pay the staggering price for them.

“I came to shop and found people fighting to buy and the prices were very high,” said shopper Amina Hamdi, 63, despairing at trying to buy basic goods.

“It is not possible to live without food,” said Aicha during a recent shopping trip to the fish and meat market in Tunis. “We can live without furniture, construction material, but we have to eat.” She only gave her first name for fear of persecution by police for speaking out.

The government has blamed speculators, black market hoarders and the war in Ukraine, but economic experts say the government’s own budget crisis, and its inability to negotiate a long-sought loan from the International Monetary Fund, have added to Tunisia’s troubles.

Fights sometimes break out at food market queues, and scattered protests and sporadic clashes with police over rising prices and shortages have occurred around the country. In a suburb of the capital, Tunis, a young itinerant fruit vendor recently killed himself after police seized the scales he used to weigh his wares.

His act of desperation revived memories of the 2010 self-immolation of another Tunisian vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, which prompted protests that led to the ouster of...