Two people were killed and 400 injured, mostly police, in riots in Algeria linked to rising food costs and unemployment, the interior minister said Saturday as the government scrambled to end the crisis. One person was shot dead Friday in Ain Lahdjel in the M'Sila region, 300 kilometres (180 miles) south-east of Algiers, the minister Dahou Ould Kablia said on national radio.
"He died in an attempt to break into a police station," he said, confirming a report in the newspaper El Khabar, which named the victim as 18-year-old Azzedine Lebza. El Khabar said police opened fire as they tried to evict demonstrators who had forced their way into the town's post office and a government building.
It said three of Lebza's friends were also wounded. A second demonstrator was killed Friday in Bou Smail, a small town 50 kilometres west of Algiers, Ould Kablia said. "He was picked up in the street, wounded. A pathologist said he had died from wounds to the head, but the cause of death has not yet been established."
A medical official said earlier that the man, 32-year-old Akriche Abdelfattah, had been hit in the face by a tear gas canister. Ould Kablia said police had been ordered to show restraint in containing the demonstrations and had paid for it. "More than 300 police and gendarmes have been wounded, while on the other side there are fewer than 100 hurt," he said. The minister said police had made an unspecified number of arrests.
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