Police fired in the air on Tuesday as thousands of Somalis descended into Mogadishu's violence-ridden streets to protest rising food prices, a day after five were killed in similar demonstrations.

More than 10 000 people gathered in the southern neighbourhood of Madina and marched towards the main Bakara trading district, where rally leaders addressed the crowd, an AFP correspondent said.

Police fired in the air at one point during the march but no casualties were immediately reported, witnesses said. The crowd briefly dispersed after the shots.

"This is the worst problem facing the planet. Nobody cares about civilians and traders are harming us even more than Somalia's armed enemies now," Sheikh Mohamoud Abdulle told the crowd.

"We can no longer ignore what is happening and we must respond to the best of our ability," added the cleric.

Thousands of demonstrators poured onto the streets on Monday to vent their anger at printers of fake money and unscrupulous traders whose preference for dollars over the Somali shilling is helping to push inflation to record levels.

Rioters set tyres on fire and smashed shop windows in the trading district, drawing a fierce response from Somali security that left five demonstrators dead, witnesses said.

Although there are no official inflation figures, UN monitors say cereal prices have increased by between 110 and 375 percent in the past year as central Somalia has endured its worst drought in recent memory.

The dollar is now equivalent to 25 000 Somali shillings, up from an average of 4000 shillings in 1991 when the country descended into lawlessness after the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

Since then, it has had no central bank to regulate inflation.

AFP