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Benin fuel sellers clash with police, two dead
19 Aug 2004 13:00:24 GMT
By Jean-Luc Aplogan

PORTO NOVO, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Hundreds of illegal fuel vendors fought police in the streets of Benin's capital in clashes that left two people dead and at least 10 in hospital, police said on Thursday.

The riot broke out on Wednesday after police started arresting petrol vendors in Porto Novo and hundreds of others came to their rescue, some wielding machetes and firearms, witnesses said.

Hundreds of thousands of people sell fuel, mostly smuggled from neighbouring Nigeria, in barrels on roadsides in Benin. They sell it at between 200 and 250 CFA francs ($0.38-0.47) per litre, compared with 365 CFA francs at a petrol station.

Enraged vendors burnt tyres on the streets of Porto Novo, set fire to a petrol station, damaged the residence of the trade minister and destroyed many of the city's traffic lights during the clashes, which lasted all afternoon, police said.

On Thursday, police and soldiers patrolled the city and only a few residents and market traders had ventured out into the debris-strewn streets -- though a few fuel vendors were already selling petrol from barrels in back alleys.

The police raid was part of a crackdown on the illegal trade, which hurts authorised petrol traders' revenues and has stoked tensions with Benin's huge eastern neighbour, Nigeria.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo has blamed smuggling of subsidised Nigerian petrol to neighbours for recurrent fuel shortages in Africa's biggest oil producer and most populated country.

Last year it closed its border with Benin for a week over concerns about increased cross-border crime including smuggling. Petrol prices almost doubled in Benin after the border was shut.

The former British colony reopened its frontier after Benin agreed to joint patrols by police and customs officials, and trans-border cooperation. Nevertheless fuel smuggling has continued to flourish.

Benin's Trade Ministry estimated in the late 1990s at least 300,000 people sold smuggled petrol on its streets, and the number is thought to have increased substantially since then. Almost all drivers fill up from barrels in the street.

One of the world's poorest countries, Benin has a population of about 6.7 million, according to U.N. figures from 2003.


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