On June 04, hundreds of residents of the city of Toamasina in eastern Madagascar gathered to the street to denounce the economic effects of the lock down for the people and to demand an end of police violence.
During the demonstration it came to fights with the security forces, which used rubber bullets against the protest. The masses resisted with stones and erected barricades and set tires to fire. According to the authorities the clashes lasted into the night.
Previously, a street vendor had been brutally mistreated by security forces because he allegedly violated the afternoon curfew. To enforce the lock down the government deployed the army. If people cannot go to work, they cannot afford food, or rent. In a video published by the news agency AFP a woman says: “I´m very afraid of the police, but faced with the lack of money we act if we were not afraid.”
