The Bangladeshi government on Sunday launched a food subsidy program to offset rising prices of staples like cooking oil and lentils seen in the country following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
According to Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh, the scheme is intended to provide low-cost food items to 10 million people.
It will be applied until the end of Ramadan in six weeks.
"The war in Ukraine has led to an increase in the price of oil, which has had an impact on commodity prices," he told AFP.
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The rise in commodity prices, which authorities attribute to the jump in oil prices since the Russian military offensive, has sparked a wave of discontent in this country of 170 million inhabitants.
The opposition accused financiers of price speculation and staged protest rallies, ahead of a nationwide strike scheduled for late March to protest rising prices.
Hundreds of people lined up on Sunday, the first day of the aid programme, in Fatullah, an industrial area near Dhaka.
Mosharraf Hossain, a helmsman, waited four hours before shopping.
"Prices are climbing on the normal market in an incredible proportion," said this beneficiary to AFP.
Traders told him that “the ongoing war near Russia” was the reason they raised prices, but Hossain is skeptical.
“Rice, lentils and sugar are mainly produced in our country,” he notes.
“Is there war here in Bangladesh?
It's a bluff,” he exclaims.